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O'Reilly Auto Parts and the United States Modified Touring series present The Hunt for the National Championship rounds 9 through 16!
It's time to get the final half of USMTS's Hunt underway starting this Thursday night at Highway 3 Raceway in Allison, Iowa and then it's up to Minnesota where the remaining seven races of The Hunt will be held. Labor Day weekend finds USMTS starting out at Chateau Raceway in Lansing on Friday followed by a Fall Jamboree preview event at Deer Creek Speedway in Spring Valley on Saturday, then on to Kasson Speedway on Sunday and ending with the second visit of The Hunt at Owatonna's Steele County Fairgrounds on Labor Day. After those five races in five nights the USMTS hunters take a day off before a practice night back at Deer Creek on Wednesday, September 5th before their biggest event of the year, the 9th Annual USMTS Featherlite Fall Jamboree from September 6th through the 8th which already boasts more than 117 pre-entries!
And why not? The pre-entry deal for the Fall Jamboree was excellent this year as for just an early $100 entry fee, every racer is guaranteed $400 against their winnings for the weekend. But even at this late date, if you enter before this Saturday, September 1st for $200, you'll still get at least $300 back at the end of it all. And when you consider that Thursday's feature pays $200 to start ($2000 to win), Friday's pays $250 to start ($4000 to win) and Saturday's finale pays a poultry $600 to start ($6000 to win) plus 26 cars start Thursday & Friday's A mains and 30 cars will start 3-wide in Saturday's A-main, it's a dad-gum pretty sweet deal! Also, there will be a $2000 to win, $200 to start non-qualifiers race on Saturday that starts 24 cars for drivers that race all 3 nights. Lot's of opportunities to make more than that $300 back! For more on the Jamboree, click here: http://www.deercreekspeedway.com/2007featherlitefalljamboree.htm
What do Ron Jones, Johnny "The Jet" Saathoff, Willy Kraft, Mark Noble, Dan Daniels, Kelly Shryock, Jason Hughes and Chad Kinder have in common besides having their names at the top of the list in the who's who world of Modified racing? They all have won USMTS Fall Jamboree finales! And...None of them have repeated that feat to date!
And if 120-plus USMTS Modifieds, plus Wissota Modifieds and the other Jamboree classes aren't enough to attract your interest as a fan, there's this terrific USMTS points chase that The Hunt has given us this year and what a points race it is!
It's a four-horse race with 8 events to go. Check out the point standings at www.USMTS.com . Jeff Nunn has put together a really neat way to display The Hunt contenders and how they stack up in the standings. There's a possible points swing of 79 points per event if one of the contenders doesn't qualify for the A main. With 120 or more cars at the Jamboree and only 26 to 30 A main spots each night, that becomes a real possiblity! They have had the Jamboree at Deer Creek the last five years and then for 3 years before that, the event was held at Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City, Iowa. Four of the eight remaining A mains in The Hunt are at Deer Creek Speedway so lets take a look at how those top four guys have done there.
Oklahoma's Jason Hughes leads the Hunt with 804 points. Just 20 points back is Jason Krohn from Slayton, Minnesota and South Dakota's Jon Tesch is 3rd and trails Hughes by 63. Now before us fans who aren't familair with the area start thinking "home cooking" for Krohn better visit mapquest. Krohn lives 3 hours away from Deer Creek. Spring Valley, Minnesota is just an hour and a half away from the hometown -- Fertile, Iowa -- of 8-time USMTS champion Kelly Shryock who sits 4th in points and is more than one max points swing behind Hughes at -91. The problem for Kelly is there are those other two guys between him and Hughes that he also has to beat if he's going to remain the only champion that USMTS has ever had. Shryock and Krohn both drive Skyrocket Chassis, Tesch runs GRT and Hughes is in a Hughes of course.
The Okie point leader has a pretty spectacular record at Deer Creek Speedway, particularly in the Jamboree. While 2006 was nothing to write home about (a 19th in the finale was the best he could do all weekend), in 2005 Hughes won the Jamboree record payout of $12,000 in that year's final night. Jason also had a top five in 2004 and was 7th twice in back to back finals (02&03). In preliminary night activity, he score a Thursday win in 02, a 2nd in 03 and a 4th back in 99 in the first Jamboree in Iowa. He's had several other A main starts and a couple more top tens but also just as important, Hughes has missed making the A main at least 3 times (including twice in 06) in Deer Creek Jamboree events. In other Deer Creek USMTS races, he was third behind Shryock and Brad Waits back in May of this year and has at least 3 other top fives in previous years.
For Krohn, it hasn't been as rosey at Deer Creek although he made all 3 A mains last year which could prove to be very important if he can do that again this year. This Jason wasn't at the Jamboree in 2005 but again made all 3 A mains back in 2004 and had a top ten in the finale that year. Krohn also made the finale A main back in 2002 and the Labor Day weekend USMTS A main in 2006. His best Deer Creek USMTS finish though was a third back on May 29th, 2004 behind winner Dan Chapman and Shryock.
Tesch has a little bit better Jamboree record than Krohn has. The last two years, he has missed making the A though on the first night but then made the other 4 As with a best finish of third in the 2005 final. He had a top five and a top 10 and a worst finish of just 12th in the other 3 events. In 2004, he had a 12th in that year's finale and made all 3 A mains. In 2003, he made at least 2 of the A mains and had another top five. But prior to last year's Jamboree, not so good in other USMTS shows. He didn't qualify for the A main in May and had to use a provisional there in September 06. Nothing spectacular in any other USMTS events at Deer Creek for Tesch but he does seem to step it up come Jamboree time!
Naturally, the champion Shryock has the best record of the four. Last year, Kelly had two seconds -- one was behind Kinder in the final -- and a fourth. He won the Jamboree finale in 2004 which was the other year that it paid $12,000 to win and made a 24th to 1st run to win $4G in 2005. Another run like that at Deer Creek could mean some valuable points for Shryock in the standings as passing points (one per position gained in the feature when you don't use a provisional) also count in USMTS events. Shryock has finished no worse than 8th in any Deer Creek Jamboree finale and has five top 5 finishes in those events. He also has two other preliminary night wins including another $4G one in 2002. In the 5 years that the Jamboree has been at Deer Creek -- that's 15 A mains -- Shryock has missed the A no more than twice and has made 9 of the last 10! In other Deer Creek USMTS events it's even better for Kelly as you would expect given his overall dominant record with the series. I show at least 6 wins in the Deer Creek USMTS shows for Shryock.
One race that may have proved out to be the most interesting USMTS A mains involving our four contenders in Deer Creek Speedway history had it finished out was the one on May 28th, 2005. That night Hughes won his heat, Shryock went from 10th to 3rd in his heat, Krohn, 9th to 3rd in his and Tesch, 9th to 2nd which had all 4 locked into the A. That was the year of the scary crash that left several drivers injured and halted the A main after just 9 laps. After a meeting, the race was called off and the purse money donated to the injured.
At the other remaining Hunt tracks, Mike Hejna won at Highway 3 in Allison last time out (June 12th) while Hughes finished 3rd behind teammate Tommy Weder, Jr. Krohn was 5th and Shryock, 9th. Tesch was not at that event. It's been a year since USMTS was at Chateau Raceway in Lansing. Shryock led the first 38 laps of that race only to have a bad battery cable leave him with a tenth place finish which at the time, dropped him to 3rd place in last year's inaugural Hunt standings. Tesch won that event with Krohn getting 18th. Hughes wasn't there. Hughes did have the best finish of the 4 at Kasson on July 18th (4th) with Shryock next in 8th. Tommy Myer got the win. It was just 10 days ago that Hughes, Tesch, Krohn and Shryock crossed the finish line in that order at Steele County in Owatonna with Hughes grabbing the important win and also collecting the most passing points of the four to increase his lead in the standings.
More on the rest of the field coming up later...
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