BOONE, Iowa – More than 400 drivers took to the track to compete during Wild Rose Casino Prelude to the Super Nationals night at Boone Speedway Saturday evening.
The IMCA modified division drew the most entries, with 120 drivers taking advantage of the opportunity to get extra laps at the third-mile dirt oval in advance of the 38th IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals presented by Casey’s, which start on Monday.
The event also featured stock cars (93 entries), Northern sportmods (96), hobby stocks (79) and sport compacts (24).
In fact, there were so many entries in the Northern sportmod, modified and stock car divisions that only the winner of each heat race advanced to their respective main event. The remainder of those fields was set via B Mains.
– Ricky Thornton Jr., the 2016 Super Nationals champion in the modified division, did something Saturday no one else did. The driver hailing from Adel, Iowa, picked up a pair of heat race wins in the modified and stock car divisions. He finished seventh in the modified feature and fifth in the stock car division main event.
– History is on the side of Rocky Caudle, who won Saturday’s Northern sportmod feature in a photo finish over Brayton Carter. The last two winners of the Northern sportmod feature during the Prelude to the Super Nationals – Johnathon Logue and Jake McBirnie – went on to win the Super Nationals main event the following Saturday.
– Cole Pfeifer went for a wild ride during the second hobby stock B Main after contact with Carl Ellis coming out of the fourth turn on the second of 10 laps. Pfeifer’s No. 10c spun down across the nose of Ellis’ car and Ellis slammed into the left-rear quarter panel’s car. The contact sent Pfeifer’s car into a slow flip into the infield.
Neither driver was injured in the incident, though both drivers were done for the night.
– Jason Bolte joined Pfeifer in the upside down club early Sunday morning when he flipped his car five laps into the sport compact feature. Like Pfeifer, Bolte emerged from his car uninjured.
– The Wild Rose Casino Prelude to the Super Nationals featured plenty of racing to get race fans warmed up for the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals. Saturday’s event, which ended early Sunday morning, featured 47 heats, 22 B Mains and five features.
In all, there were 710 laps of green flag racing completed.
All six nights of the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s on Sept. 7-12 will be broadcast live via SPEED SPORT TV affiliate IMCA.TV.