Brownstown Speedway
Winning at Brownstown is always meaningful
By Bryan Ault
Special to DirtonDirt
Derek Groomer celebrates at Brownstown. (Ryan Roberts)
BROWNSTOWN, Ind. (April — Winning at Brownstown Speedway is never easy. It took the late Hall of Famer Scott Bloomquist of Mooresburg, Tenn., six tries before being able to crack the starting lineup of a Brownstown feature. Regional standout Josh Rice of Crittenden, Ky., a driver in the thick of his rookie season on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series tour, picked up his first victory at the quarter-mile oval just last season. The list of drivers winning in a first visit to Brownstown is small.
Those facts weren’t lost on Derek Groomer, who picked up his second career win at the Jackson County Fairgrounds track in just his second full season in the division’s ranks. | RaceWire
“It's big,” Groomer said. “You know, we've won several times here in a modified, and then, you know, just to get at this early in my career in a Late Model, it feels big.”
Picking his way through lapped traffic and with a stroke of luck on his side, the 36-year-old driver from Bloomington, Ind., was able to stay up front and hold off a hard-charging Matt Boknecht of Seymour, Ind., to take home the checkered flag in the inaugural Slingin’ Dirt Series 35-lap event and bank the $3,000-to-win prize.
“Oh, man, it was good,” Groomer said after the race in his hauler. “You know, it's been a long time coming. We've worked hard this winter, you know, to get to where we're at and it feels good to pay off.”
With Boknecht the prime challenger to Groomer, other expected contenders weren’t in the mix at the end. Chad Stapleton of Edinburgh, Ind. was able to climb as high as third on the ninth lap, but caught the cushion off turn three on lap 25 and crossed the finish line sixth. Six-time track champion Devin Gilpin of Columbus, Ind., spent most of the 35-lapper outside the top five before reaching fifth, leaving Groomer’s only serious challenger to be Boknecht, a longtime Brownstown modified ace who, like Groomer, leapt into the full-fendered division in recent seasons.
“Really it was due to money aspect because we were spending the same money on a modified and running for less than what we could run for these and spend the same money,” said Groomer, who is in just his second season of Super Late Model racing after competing in the open-wheel modified division since he was 16 years old. “So that was kind of our motivation there.”
“We traveled a little bit of everywhere,” Groomer added of his modified days. “We hit Lawrenceburg (Speedway) pretty hard when they went to the new configuration. We hit that pretty hard and then here, Putnamville, Paragon, just a little bit of everywhere. We traveled, you know, to try and chase some money.”
Boknecht climbed to second as Groomer caught lapped traffic quickly. Boknecht overtook Groomer on the 11th lap, but a caution for the spinning Jace Owens negated the pass, handing the lead back to Groomer.
Getting clear racetrack, Groomer built a half-straightaway lead before catching backmarkers again. Boknecht once again tracked down Groomer as the pacesitter struggled to find speed in dirty air.
“I wasn't very good in dirty air as I was when I was out by myself,” Groomer said. “So, yeah, I got a little nervous there just because I couldn't move around the lap cars as good as I needed to. It wants to lift the front end up there and makes it where you can't steer the car at all. It kind of wants to go wherever it wants to, you know, it kind of wants to keep going straight, so that it makes it harder to drive. It’s everywhere you go with Late Models just because they’re so aero-dependent.”
“You’ve got to drive so hard because everybody's so even, you know, there's not a big speed difference,” he added. “So if you're not driving hard, the next guy is, and he's going to get you.”
Boknecht pulled even with Groomer in turn one with five laps to go and again with three laps remaining, but Groomer was finally able to pull away in the closing laps after clearing additional lappers.
“I changed my lane there, you know, so I could try to get to the middle or just, you know, give the lapped cars just enough (room), but I could hold them down to try to stay in that little bit of a brown where they were through the middle,” Groomer said of his approach in the closing laps. “So that made me go a little harder there and helped me out there.”
Capturing Slingin’ Dirt’s first race was also a boon to Groomer’s confidence. The D.J. Smallwood-run tour plans to hit several tracks around Indiana and Kentucky. Next stops include three trips to the Bluegrass State: Owensboro’s Windy Hollow Speedway on May 16, Junction City’s Ponderosa Speedway on May 22, and Campton's 191 Speedway on May 23. Groomer plans to hit those shows as well as well as the James Essex-directed Northern Allstars Late Model Series events.
“You know, we follow James's tour there, the Northern Allstars, and it’s all good guys,” he said. “You come here tonight for a new series, and it's all good guys again. So, yeah, definitely, it feels good.”
