Curt Hansen won the late model feature at the Iowa State Fair Speedway. Promoter George Barton joins Hansen.
Des Moines, Iowa (July 23, 1977) - Iowa late model drivers had better beware because Dike's Curt Hansen his almost come up with the perfect car.
"It's just a pinch from being perfect," Hansen said after breezing in the late model feature at the Fairgrounds on Saturday night before 5,200 fans. "We did a lot of work on it last week and it came out almost perfect"
Not many drivers will dispute Hansen's claim. Curt started out fourth behind Bill Kirk of Salix winner of the first heat. But Hansen didn't waste any time jumping into the lead. After an early red flag, he moved past Bill Rice of Des Moines into second place and then cut to the inside of Kirk on the first turn of the third lap to take the lead for good.
Hansen almost immediately opened a quarter-lap lead, but that was short-lived because of numerous yellow and red flags.
"The yellow flags didn't hurt me much because I had a good lead, so they just gave me a chance to rest," said Hansen, who retained a comfortable margin the rest of the way.
Ron Tilley of Council Bluffs, who edged Hansen in the second heat, took over second as Kirk and Rice fell back in the pack, but was no match for Hansen, leader of the season points standings.
"I was really surprised at the big lead over Tilley," said Hansen, who said his changing tires between races may have been the winning difference.
"I guess Tilley had more problems with the dry track."
The slick, dry surface also helped in causing the abundance of yellow flags throughout the program.
It was the fifth Fairgrounds feature win for Hansen, who has captured 11 of his last 15 feature races at Iowa tracks and won the Grand National championship at Boone earlier this week.
Rocky Hodges of Des Moines didn't have as easy a time but led all the way to take his third sportsman feature of the season. Hodges turned back Denny Rosenberg of Grimes in the race, also slowed by caution flags.
Rosenberg's final burst at the end came too late to catch Hodges. Bill Davis of Des Moines, last week's winner, wound up third.
Results –
Heat #1 – Bill Kirk, Salix
Heat #2 – Ron Tilley, Council Bluffs
Semi-main – Lefty Robinson, Des Moines
Feature –
1. Curt Hansen, Dike
2. Ron Tilley
3. Joe Merryfield, Des Moines
4. Ed Sanger, Waterloo
5. Stan Stover, Reinbeck
6. Bill Kirk
7. Dave Chase
8. Tim McDonough, Cedar Rapids
9. Karl Sanger, Waterloo
10.Ken Davidson, Indianola
No comments:
Post a Comment