Justin Kay gets first IMCA Deery Bros win of 2016

WEST LIBERTY — Justin Kay returned to IMCA racing last Friday after about a month or so on the road racing his Open Late Model, and he's picked right back up to his form of the previous three seasons.

Since his return, he's been in the car Brian Birkhofer was driving in select Open Late Model races, transferred over to the IMCA setup. In three races in the black, renumbered 15k car, Kay has three wins, capped off by his IMCA Deery Brothers Summer Series win Tuesday night at West Liberty Raceway.

Kay won at Davenport on Friday night and at the weekly show in West Liberty on Saturday before Tuesday night's win. The car's characteristics fit Kay's style.

'This is similar to my other car, but they both do different things. I think I like this feeling better; I'm more maneuverable with this thing,' Kay said. 'This is fun. This place is special for us. (Crew chief) Tyson (Gheer) loves winning here. Winning any of these races with the guys that are here is pretty fun.'

Kay started on pole in the 40-lap, $2,000-to-win main event, but wasn't the man on point to start the race.

That was Tiffin driver Denny Eckrich, who won the first Summer Series race this season at West Liberty back in April. Eckrich had a decent lead on Kay until the pair hit lapped traffic. It was right about then a strong wind picked up out of the north (blowing from Turn 4 to Turn 1). The combination of that, lapped cars and changes in handling to both front-runners gave Kay the advantage he needed.

Kay ended up cruising to the win by nearly a straightaway ahead of Scott Fitzpatrick, Eckrich, Tyler Droste and Kevin Kile.

'I was really surprised how the wind affected the car,' Kay said. 'Once the wind picked up, I about fenced it in Turn 1. It took away all the air off the nose. Then going into 3, I could hold it wide open (with the wind on my nose).

'The track had changed a bit, but the car was balanced really well (in the wind). I wasn't tight, I wasn't free. It was fun to be able to get by lapped cars and keep rolling and have fun.'

From Eckrich's point of view, it was more his car not being dialed in exactly right than anything circumstantial on the track.

Eckrich wasn't down about the third place result, though. He was happy with it, even despite losing the lead. Tuesday was just the sixth night on a new IMCA car, and he said he and his team are still figuring out exactly what it needs.

'The track got away from us a little bit, and we needed to be tighter,' Eckrich said. 'We're learning this new car. It's typical racing. You can't every night. We're taking strides; we're finding out what to do. We're not doing bad in it yet. We're happy.'

As for Kay and the black 15k car — a color scheme he hates, by the way, and will change eventually — there were two different versions of the story on how he ended up in that car.

Fitzpatrick, a teammate and good friend of Kay's, said after the race, 'we were supposed to share driving it, but I think he's kind of taken charge and I'm not going to be able to drive that thing now.'

In Victory Lane — and with Fitzpatrick in the distance smiling at him — Kay sang a different tune. Either way, Kay was happy to be back in Summer Series Victory Lane and ready to hit area tracks at random going forward.

'That's what he claims, but I don't know if that (deal) was really all the way in there and discussed,' Kay said through a laugh. 'I don't know what's up next. We'll see as we go. I think we'll go to Farley on Friday, and after that, who knows? I might go race the Modified for a while.'

ABELSON WINS HAWKEYE DIRT TOUR FEATURE

The IMCA Hawkeye Dirt Tour Modifieds also were in action Tuesday night at West Liberty. Sioux City's Chris Abelson took the lead midway through the race after then-leader Justin Kay (also in the Modified race) fell out with a mechanical failure.

Abelson never looked back, leading the rest of the way for his first HDT win of the season. Jake Murray was second, Kelly Shryock third, Kurt Kile fourth and Chris Zogg fifth.

Abelson said it mean a lot to him to come from Western Iowa and to a track he'd never been to and get a win.

'It's very hard to do, because I'd never seen this track before,' Abelson said. 'I race big tracks weekly, normally, so I do better in these (HDT) shows than the short tracks. Hopefully we can keep doing well at these big tracks.

'This makes me feel pretty good, because hopefully then when we get back to my local tracks (later in the season) and we run the Western side, we'll have a bit of an advantage, I hope.'

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