IMCA late model driver Cory Dumpert came within a few ounces of not winning the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals at Boone Speedway in Iowa. As he went to do a victory donut, his car ran out of fuel.
“There was a yellow with three to go, and then another yellow with two to go,” said Dumpert, of Newman Grove, Nebraska. “My green light on the dash was flickering when the safety lights went off at the start of the green-white-checkered. I was staring at my fuel pressure gauge —it was down to three or four pounds of pressure.”
Dumpert put on a show as he moved up the field from a 11th-place start. He passed six-time IMCA Super Nationals late model champion Jeff Aikey with 10 laps to go.
“At that point, I told myself it was business as usual — I had to stay focused,” Dumpert said. “I didn’t want to jerk the car around and pick up an air bubble. As it was, Aikey was pushing me across the finish line. One bobble and he would have got by me.”
Prior to the feature, Dumpert knew that his fuel may come close to running out.
“We have a 22-gallon fuel cell in the car, and we run a [Chevrolet Performance] 604 crate engine on alcohol, which burns twice as fast as gas,” said Dumpert. “We would have enough for 50 laps, plus caution laps, [but] we knew we were going to be in trouble if things went south. You hope your competitors have got it together for a championship race. But, we piled up a bunch of caution laps by the end of the race. Those caution laps seemed like they took an eternity.”
Cory Dumpert, a three-time IMCA national late model champion is on track for his fourth title. IMCA has yet to officially crown this year’s champ. The wait for that announcement must also seem like an eternity.
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
