Only three races are complete in the Southwest Speedway's 2010 racing season and already the IMCA Modifieds class has had a season's worth of wild times.
Rough driving and numerous cautions have led to long, drawn-out races. Two of their 25-lap features were stopped far short of their goal because of time limits.
Yet, through it all, the race for first place in the Modifieds is already a tight one. Only 10 points separates the season point standings leader from the seventh-place driver.
If that trend holds, the rest of the summer could turn into a fight for the season championship.
"It's going to go to the last night, I think," said Jamall Wold, the Modifieds point leader. "Who knows what's going to happen?" Dickinson is kind of a wild race track. Unpredictable."
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Wold has been perhaps the biggest surprise of all at the Southwest Speedway.
Though not dominant by any means, consistency has helped the 22-year-old Arnegard driver top the standings heading into Sunday night's races.
Wold's best finish was a fourth-place showing during the season opener on May 15. He placed eighth two weeks later and was sixth on June 12.
Still, just finishing the races has helped him net enough points to hold the lead -- at least for now.
"I've been trying to stay out of all the mess and concentrate on just finishing," Wold said. "It's been paying off. I don't even know what to say. I've been pretty lucky. I missed a few big ones (accidents)."
Some of the track's most consistent drivers are fighting their way into the points race.
Josh Jones, like Wold, has had consistent finishes and is two points behind in second place. Veterans Dale Burwick and Randy Burwick, a pair of cousins who've done their part by simply finishing races, are seven points behind Wold and tied for third.
Eric Paul, last year's season champion from Dickinson, is in seventh place following his feature win on June 12.
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Jason Wolla, who closed out last season on a tear, is in fifth place and a little upset with himself despite winning the May 29 feature.
"Us personally, we've made a lot of changes, trying stuff differently, searching for something people don't have, trying to put ourselves up in the next tier to try to be unbeatable," Wolla said. "We've kind of beat ourselves doing that, in Dickinson especially."
Wolla, however, has a cheeky and perhaps even brilliant theory on why things are beginning to settle down in the Modifieds class.
"Everybody realizes how much it sucks fixing their cars back up so then everybody calms it down," Wolla said.
