Track Schedules

Racing Season Concludes; All Iowa Points Champions Announced
By Jeff Broeg 

MT. PLEASANT, IA (Oct 29) – The 2008 racing season has come to a close and nine drivers have earned the title of All Iowa Points Champion in their respective divisions. 

Davenport’s Brian Harris made a strong run at the NASCAR Whelen Racing Series National title and came up just short, but his thirty-eight top five finishes and twenty-one victories were more than enough to propel him to the AIP Late Model Championship. Runner-up Todd Cooney of Des Moines accumulated sixteen feature wins and finished thirty-nine points behind Harris. 

Former IMCA Super Nationals champion Todd Shute of Des Moines emerged as the AIP Modified champion for 2008 after a tight battle with Ryan Ruter, Kanawha, and Jeremy Mills of Garner. Shute tallied seventeen feature wins as part of his forty top-fives and held off the north central Iowa competitors by seven and nine points respectively. 

Brian Blessington of Breda has been the man to beat in the AIP Stock Cars over the past couple of years and in 2008 Dustin Smith of Lake City was able to get the job done by taking the title and relegating Blessington to the runner-up position. Smith scored fifteen feature wins and forty-nine top five finishes on his way to the championship. Dustin’s brother Donavon Smith and Mason City’s Kevin Opheim tied for the third spot. 

Kevin Sather of Ankeny and Luke Wanninger of Jefferson dueled throughout the season in the Limited Modified division climaxing in their on-track final lap incident racing for the Sport Mod win at the IMCA Super Nationals. Their battle in the All Iowa Points was fun to watch as well as they swapped the lead several times over the final weeks with Sather prevailing by just four points. In racing results reported and tallied by the AIP, Sather scored fifty-one top five finishes including twenty-nine wins, while Wanninger had forty-nine top fives and twenty-five victories. Austin Kaplan of Ankeny had an impressive season with fourteen feature wins, but he finished a distant third in the final point standings. 

Shannon Anderson of Atlantic broke from the pack at mid-season and cruised to the AIP Hobby Stock title tallying twenty-four feature wins and forty-three top five finishes. Shannon’s father, Jeff Anderson, is a former AIP champion in the Stock Car division. Two of the amazing Smith brothers from Lake City, Doug and Devin finished second and third respectively. 

Brannon Bechen of Bernard used victories in the final two races of the season at East Moline and Donnellson to overtake Steve Schueller of Dubuque and win the Four Cylinder championship by six points. Bechen scored twelve feature wins on the season as part of his thirty-four top five finishes. Schueller was the runner-up while Daniel Porter of Mason City, Nathan Chandler of Cedar Rapids and Tyler Pickett of Boxholm finished in a three-way tie for third. 

In Sprint Cars it was Mark Dobmeier of Grand Forks, North Dakota, riding twelve feature wins to the 410 c.i. championship, his second AIP title in a row. Jody Rosenboom of Rock Rapids was a repeat champion as well with his eleven wins allowing him to more than double the point total of Mike Boston of Crete, Nebraska, in the 360 c.i. division. The 305 title is a bittersweet one for Donnie Steward of Burlington who overtook his friend Brian Hetrick in the final month. Hetrick had been atop the standings throughout most of the season before his tragic death in a motorcycle accident. Nate Eakin of Milford finished just two points behind Steward for runner-up honors. 

For a full rundown of the All Iowa Points in all nine divisions please visit www.heartlandmotorsports.com.