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Hull Sparkles at Spoon River, Takes Tom Knowles Memorial

O’Reilly Midwest All Star Series

Spoon River Speedway

Canton, IL.

September 15, 2007

Jerrod Hull captured his fifth O’Reilly Midwest All Star Series feature win and his second at Spoon River Speedway, leading the final twenty-five laps in winning the Tom Knowles Memorial Saturday night. With the victory, Hull extended his series points lead and closed in on winning the series title.

Hull and fifteen year-old Blake Fitzpatrick started on the front row of the thirty-lap feature, with the young Hoosier-based pilot, in just his first weekend of winged sprint car racing, leading Hull in the first five circuits by using an extreme high line on the race track. Hull used a consistent low line getting by Fitzpatrick following a restart and would command the point the rest of the way. The track become slick and eventually the rest of the field would follow the leader on the low side of the track. Hull managed to patiently work his way through backmarkers to hold off a challenge by Terry Babb to take the $2,000 winner’s share of the purse. Babb was second and Ryan Bunton recovered from a first lap spin to finish third. Tim Montgomery and Rob Standridge completed the top five. Fitzpatrick was sixth with Korey Weyant, Bronson Maeschen, Matt Sutton, and Chris Urish completing the top ten.

Ryan Bunton was fast qualifier at 12,143. Heats were won by A.J. Bruns, Ryan Jameson and Jim Moughan. Manny Rockhold won the B-Main and Bruns captured the Dash. Twenty-eight cars participated in the night’s racing.

Qualifying (One Lap): 1.6r Ryan Bunton 12,143, 2.51 Tim Montgomery 12.267, 3.35 Jimmy Hurley 12.450, 4.96c Nathan Charron 12.524, 5.2s Terry Babb 12.546, 6.12 Jerrod Hull 12.563, 7.10f Blake Fitzpatrick 12.586, 8.19 Bob Weuve 12.634, 9.59 Jim Moughan 12.627, 10.44 A.J. Bruns 12.635, 11.83 Chris Urish 12.737, 12.02 Manny Rockhold 12.837, 13.96 Bronson Maeschen 12.917, 14.78 Ryan Jameson 12.929, 15.5w Tiffany Wyzard 12.951, 16.72 Mike Deavers 13.045, 17.99w Korey Weyant 13.115, 18.22 Rob Standridge 13.137, 19.71 Chad Branson 13.131, 20.95 Tommy Rockwell 13.184, 21.3 Matt Sutton 13.361, 22.99x Jimmy Davies 13.420, 23.53h Matt Harms 13.445, 24.10s Jeremy Standridge 13.751, 25.4m Mark Tischer 14.031, 26.71x Robert Bell 19.444, 27.11t Tyler Thompson NT, 28.1t Tyler Shoemaker NT

First Heat (10 Laps): 1.Bruns, 2.Fitzpatrick, 3.Bunton, 4.Maeschen, 5.Deavers, 6.Branson, 7.Davies, 8.Tischer, 9.Charron

Second Heat: 1.Jameson, 2.Urish, 3.Montgomery, 4.Babb, 5.Weyant, 6.Harms, 7.Rockwell, 8.Bell, 9. Weuve

Third Heat: 1.Moughan, 2.R.Standridge, 3.Hurley, 4.Hull, 5.Sutton, 6.Rockhold, 7.Wyzard, 8.Thompson, 9.J.Standridge

B-Main (14 Laps): 1.Rockhold, 2.Rockwell, 3.Harms, 4.Thompson, 5.J.Standridge, 6.Wyzard, 7.Davies, 8.Branson, 9.Weuve, 10.Tischer, 11.Bell

Dash (6 Laps): 1.Bruns, 2.R.Standridge, 3.Hurley, 4.Hull, 5.Montgomery, 6.Bunton

Feature (30 Laps): 1.Hull, 2.Babb, 3.Bunton, 4.Montgomery, 5.R.Standridge, 6.Fitzpatrick, 7.Weyant, 8.Maeschen, 9.Sutton, 10.Urish, 11.Deavers, 12.Rockwell, 13.Jameson, 14.Bruns, 15.Hurley, 16.Harms, 17.Rockhold, 18.J.Standridge, 19.Moughan, 20.Thompson

Now, a couple of comments regarding the weekend from my personal thoughts....

Both nights, the Midwest all Stars followed the Midgets...and they ran some loooong features both nights. They have one-way radios and run a very good operation but the officials can't help it if their cars are spinning out every lap or two. When they get going, it's a good show. The finish to Friday's feature was very exciting. Friday had a delay for an long red to take a driver to the hospital for a back injury. The Micro-sprint feature ran about an hour on Friday. The Midget feature ran an extended amount of time on Friday and about an hour on Saturday. The Sprint cars got on the track at 10:50 Friday night (with a curfew of 11:00) and there wasn't much of a track left to run on. Due to the time, the sprints only ran 25 laps instead of the scheduled thirty. Saturday night, there were three classes of local racing in addition to the midgets and sprints. There was a rain delay and more rain fell in the area within an hour of the sprint feature conclusion. I give Manny Rockhold credit for moving the Sprint feature up in the schedule to follow the midgets but it was still midnight when the sprints pushed off. The sprints had a good track for about half the feature. There was a very big crowd at Spoon River and a good crowd at Jacksonville...but many people left before the sprint cars started their feature. Yes, on Saturday, there were some snafus on restart lineups and that is now fixed by procedure and personnel changes. The racing on Saturday during the first eighteen or so laps of the feature was incredible. The Fitzpatrick kid alone was worth the price of admission, Bunton came from the back and if the track would have stayed multi-groove a bit longer, I think he'd have won. Hull was Hull, certainly the class of the field, making the moves he had to make to win the race.

Speaking strictly as a fan of sprint cars (and I'm not knocking the midgets at all), I believe when a promoter books a series like the Midwest All Stars or any other traveling show, there needs to be an understanding that the feature needs to start by 10-10:30. People are coming to see your feature series that night, at a higher ticket price than normal...so you just can't wait that long to get to the good stuff. Why pay to book a traveling show and then run the features after everyone is ready to leave, or already have left?

I'm not knocking the tracks this weekend...I just don't think they are getting the most out of their investment when they have all the other racing during the prime viewing time at the track. It doesn't help the track and it doesn't help the series, either.

It seems that this is a common occurrance at many tracks around the country and I really hope that something can be done in aneffort to not only draw fans to an event but keep them happy and interested in coming back.

This isn't an official statement in any way from the Midwest All Stars. It's my personal opinion as a fan and as a racing journalist from what I see on far to many instances.