Foster gets Modified win at IMCA Spring Extravaganza

DONNELLSON — The Spring Extravaganza gets the IMCA racing season started in Iowa each year.

As the first sanctioned race in the state, Lee County Speedway gives at least a glimpse into the season ahead with IMCA Modifieds, Stock Cars, Sport Mods, Hobby Stocks and Sport Compacts on hand. If the Modified main event on Saturday night was any kind of preview for 2016, racing fans in Iowa are in for a fun ride.

Newton's Josh Foster, Brookfield, Mo., native Hunter Marriott and State Center's Kyle Brown put on a show in the A-main that got the fans in Donnellson out of their seats. Foster and Marriott traded slide-jobs for three straight laps, but a late restart lifted Foster to the win — his first in a return to racing after a three-year hiatus.

'Damn that was fun. I realize now how much I'm out of shape,' Foster said through a laugh. 'We got back into it with a lot of sponsors and my family and all that. We'll take it.

'We had fun. The sliders are always a little iffy. You've got to make sure you get in there and clear him and give him a chance to cross you over. We had fun going back and forth. It was wild.'

Foster, Brown and Marriott completed the top three finishers, respectively, and each lauded the others for the clean racing on what developed into a rough track surface in Turns 1 and 2.

Spring racing in Iowa can be an adventure, and all three knew it.

With weather that is best described as bipolar, track operators have a difficult time keeping up with moisture in the ground to be able to make the best racing surface possible for early-season specials. Brown described Turns 1 and 2 as a 'motocross track,' but did so with a smile.

It made the racing they were doing even more difficult, but in the end still fun.

'The holes were just so treacherous. Down in 1 and 2 was similar to a motocross track, if you were to race on that,' Brown said. 'I couldn't get through down there, I was too tight. I followed Foster a couple laps and learned some stuff. That helped.

'It's nobody's fault — it's just Mother Nature. You've got to have finesse with these holes.'

Fun for a few, but mostly frustrating for Marriott.

Marriott, who races out of West Union most of the year and splits time between Iowa and Missouri, led most of the main event until a pair of cautions in the middle of the race allowed Foster to make up ground quickly. He led the first 13 laps of the 20-lap race before he and Foster got to trading the lead.

Such close racing often only ends up being fun for those who come out on the positive end of it.

'It wasn't very much fun (for me), we were trying to win,' Marriott said through a disappointed smile. 'I'm sure we put on a good show for everybody. The track just changed so much, it was really hard to tell what was going to happen. Josh had a great car and gets around this place great.'

From Foster's point of view, the slide jobs and navigating the holes in the torn up track surface were easier to handle mentally because of who he was racing against.

Brown, Marriott — as well as fourth and fifth place finishers Cayden Carter and Kelly Shryock — are accomplished and well-known enough that Foster wasn't at all worried about clean racing. Slide jobs can be treacherous on a smooth, slick track, so on one that isn't, guys have to be exact with their moves.

The crowd up front Saturday night could handle themselves, and it showed in very little contact in racing for the win.

The win had a little extra pride in it, too, because Foster was running an Open motor, while Marriott and Brown were in Crates — the engine that's dominated IMCA racing the last several years.

'It really did help us tonight (having an Open). They was getting through those holes, and once I did I was able to get ahold of something and go … Here we are, making these Open motors go,' Foster said. 'When you get a field of cars like this, it's easier racing with the guys up front because — and I'm not taking anything away from the weekly guys — these guys travel all over and race.

'It's cool. We showed up with an open trailer, and to get the win that way is awesome.'

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com