ARLO BECKER “SCHOOLS” FIELD ON BUS
DRIVING
MCCALLA, HALE, DIGHTON AMONG OTHER
WINNERS AT HAWKEYE DOWNS
By Brad Grupe
(
After
a couple preliminary heats earlier in the evening, eight drivers answered the
initial call for the fifteen lap school bus feature. They soon found out they
would be racing clockwise instead of counter-clockwise as pace car driver took
an abrupt left turn while entering the quarter-mile.
Dave
Coghlan had things well in hand for the first five laps when guest flagman
Sonny Parker threw the yellow flag for a competition yellow, inverted the field
and commanded them to reverse direction. Chaos ensued as the drivers turned
their buses around. While that was happening, a ninth bus appeared from the
pits, roared down the front stretch, stopped under the flagstand and tossed a
Papa Johns Pizza and a Coke to Parker in the flagstand.
It
seems that the bus was piloted by Papa John’s Pizza rep Mark Hauder. After the
“delivery,” Hauder was mysteriously placed at the front of the field by guest
flagman Parker and restarted the race from there.
When
racing resumed, the next five laps saw three wide action, bump drafting,
high-low moves and with five laps to go Scotty “OT Guppy” Welsh dumped the
Department of Corrections Express on it’s side exiting turn three blocking the
entire track.
Once
the track was cleared and the race resumed, the last few laps developed into a
battle between Arlo Becker and Dave McCalla with some lapped traffic thrown
into the mix to keep things interesting. McCalla turned Becker almost sideways entering
the final turn but Becker saved the bus and picked up what historians say was
Becker’s first career school bus feature win.
Dave
Coghlan, Sr. edged out McCalla for second while Ryan Schoop crossed the stripe
in fourth and Shaun Myers finished fifth.
There
was some more serious racing at ASA Sanctioned Hawkeye Downs
Dave
McCalla of
In the early going, last week’s winner Michael Weber
and Kevin Lee battled side-by-side for the lead before the two made just enough
contact to send Weber spinning into the wall in turn one and sent the rest of
the field scrambling.
Some
of the field was unable to continue when the race restarted with Dave McCalla
now in front. None of the remaining
eight cars had anything for McCalla as he cruised to an eventual winning margin
of 4.297 seconds over Andy Duggan. Kevin Lee was third, Mel Schappert fourth
and Mark Hauder was fifth.
In
other Papa Johns Cup/I Wireless Championship action, future U of
Ron
Dighton picked up his first win of the season in the Barron Motor Supply IMCA
Hobby Stock feature. After starting in the third row, Dighton wrestled the lead
from early leader Ron Fare and then held
off Roland Bohnsack and Gary Pfantz to secure the win. Pfantz finished second
after starting eighth and Bohnsack finished third after starting in the third
row. Tim Dains and Dennis Klinksy also posted top five finishes.
The
Sunline Hornets feature saw a member of the
The
IMCA Sportmods division has been a battle between Arnie Reif and Ryan Luedtke
trying to catch point leader Tony Olson almost every week. Olson posted some
wins early in the season and Reif and Luedtke have caught up in terms of number
of wins but haven’t quite caught Olson yet- At least not until Friday night.
Reif
pulled out the feature win Friday night which will now time him with Olson in
the points chase as he finished two positions better than Olson. Finishing
behind Reif was Brian Kauffman, then Olson was third, Luedtke fourth and Jason
Doyle fifth.
Racing
resumes Friday night August third with Performance Concepts Late Models, Miller
Time Modifieds, Budweiser Sportsmen, Barron Motor Supply IMCA Stock Cars,
Barron Motor Supply IMCA Hobby Stocks, Sunline Hornets and Go Karts all in
action.
FEATURE RESULTS
July 27, 2007
BUDWEISER SPORTSMEN (30 laps)
BARRON MOTOR SUPPLY IMCA STOCK CARS (25 laps)
BARRON MOTOR SUPPLY IMCA HOBBY STOCKS ( 25 laps)
SUNLINE HORNETS
IMCA SPORTMODS
SCHOOL BUS
1 Arlo Becker,; 2. Dave Coghlan, SR.; 3. Dave McCalla; 4.
Ryan Schoop; 5. Shaun Myers; 6.
Mike Felske; 7. Brian Toma; 8. OT
Guppy; 9. Mark Hauder