McBirnie Controls Marshalltown For $1,000 Mod Win

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa — Five IMCA divisions brought 94 cars Friday evening with excellent weather included at Marshalltown Speedway. It was one of several modified nights that offered $1,000 for a win.

Jake McBirnie jumped into the lead of the modified feature using the top line at both ends of the racy quarter-mile. He cruised 17 laps before losing some speed passing lapped cars.

Joel Rust closed and pressured McBirnie the final three laps but his final turn slider came up short. Following McBirnie and Rust was Maguire DeJong.

Austin Kaplan led the last six laps of the stock car feature, using the top side of turn four to accomplish the task. Garrett Corn and Michael Jeannette led earlier and for several laps Kaplan and Jeannette had an intense duel before Kaplan finally pulled off the winning move. Jeannette and Steve Meyer filled the top three.

Jenae Gustin rocketed out of turn four at the top on lap five, held off challengers on a restart with two laps remaining, and won the Northern sport mod feature.

Gustin ran the top at one end and middle at the other end successfully in a feature showing five wide at times. Sam Wieben was second and Kyle Olson third.

The hobby stock feature had its own drama when Calvin Dhondt caught up with the leader, Eric Knutson.  Lap three of the twenty lapper had Knutson using the bottom of turn four to take the lead from Brian Kriegel.

Knutson seemed to have things under control but Dhondt finally closed the gap and used the top of turn four to make his winning pass.

Knutson followed Dhondt across the line and Dustin Filloon was third.

Josh May won the mod lite finale.