POSTED October 29, 2001

Cold weather and exciting racing featured the 16^th Annual Indiana-Michigan Challenge Cup this past week-end at the Mottville Speedway!

Ron Hughson, Jr., Merle Yoder, Fred Collins, Fred Garrett and Justin Stump took home IMCC championships and picture plaques from Goshen Collision Center and Hunley’s Service and Repair.

In the SS 50 lap feature on Sunday, the final event of the week-end, Hughson went from 11^th to first and built a big lead, lapping several cars! By lap 28 only 5 cars were on the lead lap! Paul Scott worked his way to 2^nd but was constantly challenged by Tom Horvath, Randy Morley and Donald Hunley. With about 6 laps to go Hughson’s engine began smoking from overheating and his cockpit began filling with smoke! Scott began closing the gap but ran out of laps!

Meanwhile another race was shaping up for 6^th-9^th with Al Maurer taking 6^th followed by Jimmy Brown, Robert Sprague and Matt Buzzard.

The major complaints of the race that we heard were only two which is not bad for a big race! Morley complained that on a restart Horvath started 5^th instead of last. The rule we have followed for 11 years at Mottville is that on a caution the car causing the caution, if on the lead lap , restarts on the tail of the lead cars! In this case there were only 5 cars on the lead lap so Horvath restarted 5^th!

The other complaint involved allowing 2 cars to change tires in the pits while running under caution. This happened with only 1 lap in and 49 to go! I could not see not waiting with 49 laps to go! Had it been 20 laps to go it might be handled differently and we did receive much support after the races for this call!

Saturday night Hughson also won the feature, 25 laps, over Hunley, Terry Kline, Scott and Robert Sprague. Kline was not a factor Sunday as he lost his power steering and left after 29 laps. Before that he was running 5^th and very much in contention!

Morley’s incredible bad luck in the IMCC continued! Saturday he broke a water hose while challenging for the lead in the feature and settled for a dnf and 9^th! Sunday in the dash he hit the wall hard in the front stretch and appeared done for the night but somehow got the 26 car fixed! Considering all his troubles a 4^th place finish Sunday night was incredible!

Season points leader and probable season points champion Merle Yoder won the MS features both Saturday and Sunday nights to make it 3 feature wins in a row! Previously Merle had had no luck in IMCC either but that certainly changed this year! He now has 14 feature wins on the season! Saturday night Larry Birk was a most surprising 2^nd in the feature! Sunday night Terry Kline was 2^nd and Jamie Kline was 3^rd both nights!

Fred Collins ran terribly Saturday night but put new tires on the TC 03 and just held off Richard Allbee for the feature win Sunday! On the final lap Allbee made a tremendous charge and lost by mere inches! It was Collins 6^th feature win of the season! Saturday night Allbee won his 2^nd in a row! Cindy Grinnell was 3^rd both nights!

Garrett won both MTC features but Sunday night Mike Aumack gave him everything he could handle and was a very close 2^nd!  Garrett now has 13 feature wins on the season!

Justin Stump emerged as the kart IMCC winner Sunday after finishing 2^nd Saturday night to Greg Brown who won his 13^th kart feature of the season.

Each year after the IMCC I like to evaluate how it went and what we might do to improve it. This year was not a great year financially for us, I will admit that. Many promoters do not like to ever admit that things are not great financially but as regular readers of this column know I tell it like it is!

There were several factors for this and first and foremost is the COLD! It was very cold Saturday night with a wind and the wind chill factor was in the teens! Sunday was somewhat warmer but again a wind!

Then we have Sept 11! Since Sept 11 crowds have been down and I mean about half of what they were last season! This, according to reports I am getting, was the case at all area tracks not just Mottville! I remember coming to the track on a beautiful day the Saturday following the attacks and expecting a big crowd and having one of the smallest of the season! Plus the economy in this area was “very soft” prior to Sept 11 and now is even weaker. Finally this was the latest in the season the IMCC has even been run! This was due to other tracks having more and more two and 3 and even 4 day specials and running them later and later. I have no complaint about that as they are only trying to survive during rough times like I am!

Other than crowd this year’s IMCC was very comparable to the 10 others I have run. We had a total of 42 cars and this compares to past years of 61, 27, 37, 51, 32, 32, 46, 48, 38 and 47 (this ignores Late Models which we no longer run and any outside show cars such as Vintage Mods or Super Mini Cup cars.)

The main difference between car count in 2000 and 2001 was no Bombers since we dropped that class at mid season and less MS than a year ago. We also had a few less karts, no doubt because of the cold weather!  The MS class has been a real problem for us this season and has cost us a great deal of money!

But, on the other hand, the SS class has really picked up in 2001! For 2002 we plan on the same rules for SS as this season but will change the name to either Sportsman or Pro Stock and raise the pay-offs based on car count. Right now I am thinking $100 to win with 8 cars and going to $150-$200-$250 and even $300 in stages based on car count!

Speaking of 2002 as of right now I think we will be staying with the Good Year tire for the next 3 years. Good Year gave us a fair proposal which would allow tire prices to remain the same for the next 3 years!

I also do not foresee any big rules changes for any of our 4 stock car divisions or karts for 2002.

Looking ahead for the remainder of this season Yoder Oil Co of Elkhart, our racing fuel supplier, will be a sponsor of the season championship on November 18. I am currently working on a 2^nd sponsor and looking for a sponsor for the final race of the season on November 24.

A reminder that we now are starting at 6 pm on both Saturday and Sunday nights! November 24 we will start at 4 pm.

One final note on the 16^th Annual IMCC! While you can never ever even hope to please everyone I think that when you compare for each racer what they spent on pit passes and entry fees vs. what they got back our two day race compares very well and even better than many other tracks! Only 2 cars paid an entry fee so for the two days the rest had $40 in pit passes and for the MS and SS the worse they could do was $40 back! Most got considerably more! I know from talking to some other drivers that recently were at another track many paid $90 in entry fees and pit passes and got back as little  as $15! True!