DAVENPORT, Iowa — The unusually warm November weather gave local stock car racers one more chance to compete Friday night at the Davenport Speedway.
“Dirt in November” was a joint effort by K Promotions and Darkside Promotions. One hundred and thirty-one racers showed up to take on the Davenport dirt one more time in 2020.
The modified feature was the finale of the evening, with Steve Gustaf and Kelly Meyer leading the field to the green flag. Denny Eckrich spent a couple laps at the front before yielding to Jeff Aikey and Tyler Droste. Aikey and Droste swapped the lead several times before Aikey would pull away for good.
The Cedar Falls racer led the rest of the way to the checkers.
The most impressive drive of the night belonged to second-place finisher Spencer Diercks. Diercks was involved in a lap two incident and had to restart at the rear. Spencer used every inch of the high groove to rally back and was closing in on the leader at the finish.
Droste held on to finish third, followed by Matt Werner and Jason Bahrs.
Thirty-nine SportMods were on hand. Tyler Soppe dominated the class, winning both his heat and the feature. Soppe’s most intense challenge came from Kyle Olson, who was involved in a late race scuffle that dropped him to a 15th-place finish. The battle for second went to Sean Wyett over third place Jared Boomeester of Minnesota. Ryan Reed took fourth, with Brayton Carter rounding out the top five.
Stock cars put on a good show in their feature. Jesse Owen sprinted out to the early lead from his front row starting spot. However, he was quickly tracked down and passed by Jeff Struck Jr.
Struck’s car seem to slow allowing Owen to again take the lead and a couple laps later the victory. Struck held on to finish second, ahead of Rob Henry, John Oliver Jr., and Joe Bonney, in that order.
The hobby stock feature came down to a last lap pass by Daniel Wauters on Kaden Reynolds. Wauters made the pass in turn four to take the win. Russ Olson, Randy LaMar, and Brandon White finished third through fifth, respectively.
Josh Starr drove to a win in the sport compact main. Starr had to fend off Cyle Hawkins to take the win. Aaron Hitt finished third.