Klingele captures career-best fourth feature victory of season in sport mod division

QUINCY — Looking back, Tanner Klingele will readily admit there are some feature finishes he would like to have the opportunity for a do over.

Specifically, two finishes.

Only twice this year has the 27-year-old sport mod driver wound up outside the top 10 in the series’ 15 main events at Adams County Speedway. And those two blips on his personal driving radar will prove costly once the points portion of the season ends Aug. 28, the night track champions will be crowned.

“Sometimes it can be extremely frustrating,” said Klingele, who after winning his career-best fourth feature of the summer Sunday night took some time to dissect a season that is rapidly nearing an end.

Klingele voiced plenty of satisfaction with what has unquestionably been a successful year, but it’s still a year when two lower-than-expected feature finishes will wind up costing him a shot at his first track championship. He’ll likely finish second in the sports mod standings for the fourth time since 2013.

“I think this is the No. 1 class at the track when it comes to (overall depth) and close racing,” Klingele said. “I’ve been around since 2012, and you’d think it would get easier over the years, but … the sport mods are just so deep. On any given week, there are six or seven drivers, or even more, who can win. This division is stacked.”

Adam Birck likely will put the stamp on his third straight sport mod title next Sunday, and his formula for success is no secret.

“Birck is just so consistent,” Klingele said.

It’s hard to argue with Klingele’s assessment.

Of the 15 features Birck has run, he has one less win (3) than Klingele, but has finished in the top five 13 times and has never placed outside the top 10.

Birck, in fact, finished third behind Klingele and Dakota Girard on Sunday night. Reed Wolfmeyer and A.J. Tournear rounded out the top five.

Birck enters the final Sunday of points racing with a 567-541 advantage over Klingele. Girard (523), Logan Cumby (518) and Tournear (496) make up the rest of the top five.

Other feature winners Sunday night were Nick Hoffman in modifieds, Jeffrey DeLonjay in 4-Cylinders and Chase Randall in the Sprint Invaders 360 sprint-car series that made the first of its two visits to the Broadway Bullring. The crate late models and street stocks had scheduled off weeks.

Hoffman, who hails from Mooresville, N.C., won for the second time in as many visits to the track this year. He is chasing UMP national points and Quincy’s track is one of the few nationwide that runs on Sundays.

“We drove 5 1/2 hours (after racing in Indiana on Saturday night) to get here,” Hoffman said. “I appreciate Quincy running on Sunday nights.”

Hoffman’s other win at the Bullring came in late June when the UMP mods ran as the support series for the UMP Summer Nationals Hell Tour late model series.

Following Hoffman across the finish line were Kenny Wallace, Austen Becerra, Dave Wietholder, Mike Vanderiet Jr. and Mark Burgtorf. The modifieds were not running for points Sunday, so Becerra continues to hold an 831-764 lead over four-time defending champ Wietholder going into next Sunday’s final points race. Wallace (529) is a distant third.

Jeffrey DeLonjay all but wrapped up his first 4-Cylinder title with his sixth feature win of the season, improving his points lead over Jimmy Dutlinger to 596-586. A top-10 finish next Sunday would clinch the crown for DeLonjay, who has finished in the top 10 in 15 of 16 series features.

Rounding out the top five in the feature were Jaden DeLonjay, Kim Abbott, Trent Lebarge  and Kyle Weisenberger.

Randall made it a clean sweep with the Sprint Invaders, winning the feature, his heat race and the Shake-Up Dash that determined the first three rows of the feature.

Randall’s feature victory was his fifth of the season. He led the final 18 laps of the 25-circuit main event. Sunday night was the first time the 17-year-old from Waco, Texas, had raced at Quincy.

“I was searching early, trying to find the right lines. I was just glad to hang on,” Randall said. “The track was nice and racy. This was a blast.”

Quincy native Jake Griffin finished 12th in the 18-car feature field.

The Sprint Invaders were making their first appearance in Quincy since 2018 and 10th overall at the speedway. The series is headquartered in Burlington, Iowa, and will return to Quincy on Sept. 25 for its season finale. That date is also the last night on the Adams County Speedway schedule.