Hawkeye Downs season opens, Gibson wins feature

CEDAR RAPIDS - The green flag dropped on the opening night of the summer racing season at Hawkeye Downs Speedway Friday night with four points champions returning to defend their titles and hone their skills.

“Kind of one of those things on the bucket list that you can check off, so we're going to give it another go,” said modified driver Brian Gibson, a first-time points champion last season. “We'd like to win a few more races this year than we did last year (two). So we're going to put a little emphasis on that and try to increase our win count.”

Gibson is halfway to last year's win total, holding off seven-time modified champion Tim Plummer (2004-10) for a thrilling opening night win. It was Gibson's first win over Plummer, who did not race last season.

“Tim ran me clean;, he got a couple runs on me there,” Gibson said. “I gave him the room, tried to respect him, just kept getting a good run off the corner and I could pull him going down on the straightaway. Once my tires got warmed back up, I was good and away we went.”

Win count was not a problem for defending sportsman champion Dave McCalla, who dominated last season with 11 of 14 feature wins. McCalla picked up where he left off, claiming the feature win with little resistance.

“Obviously it was such a good year, it would be hard to think to have expectations like that,” McCalla said.

“I mean you don't have years like that ever, so we appreciate what we had but now it's a new year.”

Only the hornets and Legends classes approached the starting line last night with more than six drivers.

“Wish we could get some more cars; we definitely need some cars out here, make it a lot more fun,” McCalla said.

Hobby stock driver Matt Petrzelka, a two-time defending points champion, overtook Matt Lacoursiere with seven laps remaining and cruised to victory lane.

“Just go out there and give it our best, just put a show on for the fans, and have fun, and hopefully come out on top at the end,” Petrzelka said.

Hawkeye Downs Wall of Famer and defending Legends division points champion Kevin Korsmo took second in the feature, unable to pass Cleveland, Ohio, native Aaron Moyer.

“We all just laugh and have a good time, and then race,” Korsmo said.

Last season's runner-up in the hornets division, Kurt Bohnsack, won the opening night feature.