Sports : Brian's View from the Grandstand: Week 1 at Vinton

Welcome to another season of Views from the Grandstands. The final night of the Frostbuster takes us to Vinton. First I want to mention a few things about the track. They removed the large white tractor tires and in their place they buried tires marking the racing surface. From what I heard, they retiled turns one and two and added quite a bit of dirt to the racing surface. Tonight was a non-track points night and features were lined in in a draw-redraw format.

The first feature to kick off the season at Vinton, were the IMCA Stock Cars. Ten cars were on hand to do battle. Damon Murty wasted little time from his outside front row starting spot and would lead from start to finish. Heat race winner Jeff Mueller finished I second with Paul Shepherd, Scooter Dulin, and Bob Ahrendson rounding out the top 5.

Next up were the IMCA Sport Compacts. 14 cars started the feature with Travis Losenicky taking the early lead. He would later give up the lead to Brett Vanous after Losenicky had a tire going down. About 2 laps later the familiar 2nd car of Brad Chandler passed Vanous for the lead and would go on for the victory. Nathan Chandler finished in second place with Vanous, Duayne Herb, and Merv Chandler the unofficial top 5. Heat race wins went to Losenicky and N Chandler.

The Sport Mods were up next with 24 cars on hand, which meant everyone qualifies for the feature. This is unusual for this class as it was typically the largest class of cars every week Five cautions would keep this one close. Andy Tiernan was the early leader. Danny Dvorak took the lead on lap 4 from the 9th place starting position, and went on to take the checkers. Austin Kaplan took 2nd with Kurt Hogan, Tiernan, and Jim Buhlman the top 5. Heat races were won by Dvorak, Tiernan, and Kaplan.

There were 36 Modifieds on hand by my count. The modifieds were next in line as Dan Ratajczak scored the flag-to-flag win. Early pole starter Ryan Dolan lost a driveshaft on the first lap. Four cautions would slow the pace as the track definitely took a licking. (more about the surface later) Troy Cordes finished second with Scott Hogan, JD Auringer, and Shawn Fisher the top 5. Heat race winners were Richie Gustin, Fisher, Ratajczak, and Cordes. B-Main winners were Ronn Lauritzen and Mark Schulte.

The final feature of the night was the Hobby Stocks. 19 cars were on hand this week. Brad Forbes was the early leader starting from inside row 2. Scottie Pippert made his way around Forbes around the halfway point and went on to victory. Pippert was fortunate when the race did end as he cut down a tire going into turn 3 on the white flag lap. Forbes finished second with Nathan Ballard, Justin Lichty, and Kyle Parizek the top 5. Heat races were won by Ballard, Vince Bucholz, and Pippert.

Regarding the racing surface: The track had developed numerous holes, but that does happen at these early season races. So take it easy on the track crew as it’s difficult at best to figure out what the track is going to do for the first week of racing.

Next week kicks off the first week of points racing at Vinton I want to let y’all kow that hot laps are starting at 5 pm with racing action to immediately follow Take care, everyone have a great week and we’ll see you, In the Grandstands.