Several hope to unseat Kay as Summer Series king

Racing fans know well the term, 'black hat.”

It's a racer the majority of fans love to hate, a racer they root against either for a list of reasons, a single reason or no reason at all. Most times the 'black hat” is a defiant personality who ruffles feathers. Sometimes, though, it's simple the one who's winning all the time.

By the end of 2014, the black hat in IMCA Late Model racing in Iowa was Justin Kay. He won his second straight IMCA national title, ran away with the IMCA Deery Brothers Summer Series for Late Models and notched 27 IMCA wins overall - six in Summer Series competition.

The Wheatland native is a relatively quiet, unassuming guy, but he doesn't mind being the one everyone is chasing. As the Summer Series gets started for a 29th season at Crawford County Speedway in Denison, Kay isn't about to let up.

'We're changing a lot of stuff this year, but we plan on working the same way we did last year,” Kay said. 'Yeah (I enjoy being the target), it means you're doing something right. Being on top is definitely the place to be.

'Towards the end of last year it was aggravating (hearing rumors of cheating) because everyone worked so hard in the shop to make it a success. Those people want to cut you down every chance they get. It makes it that much better that for the rest of my life I can talk about last season and be really, really proud of what we did.”

Make no mistake, the cries of wanting a new person in Victory Lane don't just come from the grandstands.

Racers are racers for a reason, and don't enjoy getting beat - especially consistently. To that end, the sanctioning body heard a lot last year, and the end of 2013, about Kay and what people thought he was doing to make his car faster than everyone else's. Summer Series director Kevin Yoder has seen stretches of dominant racers before as the man in charge of the series - Ray Guss in 2010 and 2011 for example - and the complaints are pretty consistent.

He's not worried about one guy dominating the series again because 'there are peaks and valleys for everyone.” And he said he's also not worried about a perception of invincibility for Kay or anyone else, because consistent winners are scrutinized more harshly than anyone.

'I tell them absolutely we're paying extra attention,” Yoder said. 'Racing is objective from the interpretation of penalties standpoint, but it's subjective based on the results. I told the guys at the first driver's meeting last year and before that, ‘If you're winning a lot, I will pick on you. If you get your tires tested once, don't think it won't happen all year long.' We'll keep checking stuff.

'It is not fair. And it shouldn't be fair because if you win a bunch of races, that's part of it. And guys know that. Even Justin last year, we did that very thing with him. I tried to make sure we backed up what we said, just so guys know there will always be the chance.”

Kay doesn't mind that part of it, either, he said.

Having that focus on him is a good problem. Having the whole winter for other teams to rebuild and work on their programs to try to unseat his dominance can be a good or bad problem, depending on the motivations of those racers.

Racers can oftentimes get caught up in beating just one other car, and it deters them from making actual progress. The person who stops Kay from repeating as Summer Series champion will likely be the one who has spent time getting better overall, not just getting better than the No. 15k car.

The most likely suspects to do that are the guys who have run the full tour consistently the last few years and challenged for wins consistently. Oxford's Andy Eckrich and Cedar Falls' Jeff Aikey are two who spring to mind that are up to the task. Aikey is the all-time series leader in wins (63) and championships (seven). Eckrich has the second longest active Summer Series streak at 86 straight events - the last 85 in a row of which he's qualified for the A-main - and has a renewed incentive this season.

Eckrich and his family own and operate Precision Performance, and because of that he's not put his own racing program first for several years. He sold Kay the chassis he dominated IMCA Late Models in last year, and not knowing what that team found to be fast ate at him a little bit. Because of their friendship and business relationship, Eckrich said he certainly wasn't one to talk them down.

He, like so many, wants to beat them on the track and return the favor of 2014. Saturday night's race marks the beginning of finding out if renewed focus on his own cars pays off.

'There was a whole lot of people asking what they did or what they found out, but when it comes down to it, I don't know. But I know one thing: if you're worried about beating one person, you're beating yourself. You need to worry about getting yourself better,” Eckrich said. 'They put an old fashioned on us last year, that's for sure. And that's good. If you don't race somebody that lays it on you, you ain't going to get better yourself.

'This year, basically, every Sunday instead of working on a customer's stuff, I said I'm going to work on my own stuff. I think we found some silly things here and there and kind of gotten on that mindset to find stuff out like I used to and got to pay more attention. I think we can run with the best of them.”

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