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10 years later, Benton County Speedway still remembers ‘Urbana 5’
Annual auto racing event has gotten bigger and better each year
VINTON — It is difficult to believe how much time has passed.
Nine years since the tragic deaths of five of its young people, the auto racing community at Benton County Speedway continues to remember the departed with a marquee dirt-track racing event each summer.
“It means everything,” IMCA Sport Compact racecar driver Nolan Tuttle of Vinton said before the 10th annual Urbana 5 Memorial Races Sunday at The Bullring. “Ten years down the road, most people forget about it and this event just keeps growing. It gets bigger and bigger every year.”
On April 9, 2015, a truck driven by Quentin Ary, 19, was struck by a semi-truck as it passed through an intersection near Urbana. Ary and the four passengers — Nicole Jacobson, 20, Triston Randall, 17, Hunter Tuttle, 14, and Zoey Tuttle, 12 — all died at the scene.
Benton County Speedway was an important place to the youngsters, who routinely enjoyed Sunday nights at the racetrack with family and friends. In their honor, BCS staged the first Urbana 5 event later that summer and, 10 years later, it remains a premiere event on the summer racing calendar.
“This is the biggest race of the year for us, every year,” said Tuttle, the first cousin of Hunter Tuttle and Zoey Tuttle. “We come here and hope to win it. That would be awesome. It would mean the world to us.”
Nolan Tuttle, 20, entered Sunday ranked second in the IMCA Sport Compact standings with 257 points, just three behind Cristian Grady of Cedar Rapids. Tuttle started racing the Sport Compact — which has the Urbana 5 Memorial logo and the names of all five youngsters on the back end — three years ago.
With the help of a dozen or so sponsors, Tuttle has overcome motor trouble, faulty transmissions and the juggling of tire sizes to earn one feature race victory and three second-place finishes at BCS this season.
“It has taken three seasons to get the car figured out,” Tuttle said. “It is a struggle between I drive it on Sundays and my little brother (Jaice Tuttle, 16) drives it on Saturdays in Independence. It is a struggle to get the car to where we both want it.”
After six seasons off the racetrack, 34-year-old Dakoda Sellers is racing again at BCS. This time around, the former Sport Mod driver is racing in the Stock Car division.
“I always wanted to race Stock Car,” Sellers said. “Last year at the end of the year, one of our friends let me drive a stock car at a late race and it was a lot of fun. You kind of get the itch back.”
While Sunday was just the third appearance at BCS this season for Sellers — a cousin of Triston Randall, Hunter Tuttle and Zoey Tuttle — he was not going to miss the Urbana 5 Memorial. Before the 2015 accident, Sellers housed his Sport Mod racecar at the Tuttle house and is thankful to have an enduring event that ensures the Urbana 5 is not forgotten.
“You remember all the memories,” Sellers said. “Before the accident, Hunter was actually the one that drug my car out of the shop to get it ready because it wasn’t ready for the year and he wanted to go racing. He literally hooked a rope up to it and drug it out of the shop. … Stuff like that is nice. You remember them.”
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