By STEVE EIGHINGER

For Terry Neal, the checkered flag and sizable paycheck were nice.

Equally gratifying may have been the opportunity to stand on dry ground.

Neal captured Sunday night's $3,000-to-win Titan Wheel and Tire Late Model Shootout at Quincy Raceways after making the long haul from Ely, Iowa.

Ely sits about five minutes from flood-ravaged Cedar Rapids, one of many Iowa cities overrun by high water in recent weeks. Neal can see the Cedar River, which flooded downtown Cedar Rapids, from his home.

"The water got to about a foot of my property, but I live on a hill so I wasn't in any kind of danger or anything," said Neal, who had family and friends whose homes became victims of the Cedar's currents. "I helped sandbag, but I'm not sure it did any good. This was the worst (flooding) I've ever seen."

Surprisingly, Neal's racing schedule was never interrupted by the natural disaster all around him. In fact, the last couple of weeks has seen him flourish. Before coming to Quincy, he had won back-to-back main events in Dubuque and Marshalltown.

Neal, who led the final 46 laps, is the third straight Iowa driver to claim the Titan Wheel Shootout since first-place money was upped to $3,000 in 2006. Tom Darbyshire of Morning Sun and Jeff Aikey were the previous big-money winners. Darbyshire finished finished eighth Sunday and Aikey did not participate.

Neal also won this particular Quincy race in 2005, the final year it was a Deery Brothers Summer Series tour event. Neal won the Deery championship that season.

Quincy drivers Jason Frankel, Mark Burgtorf and Justin Reed completed the top four. Burgtorf ran second most of the race and led briefly during lap 23, but Neal was able to pull away by wearing out the high cushion.

"I figured old No. 7 (Burgtorf) would go around me at some point," said Neal in reference to all of the success Burgtorf has enjoyed on his home track over the years.

Neal, the five-time defending track champ at Jackson County Speedway in Maquoketa and 2007 champion at Davenport Speedway, stayed in the high groove on the dry and slick surface all but a few laps of the feature.

Finishing out the top 10 were Tom Goble, Lonnie Bailey, Bill Genenbacher, Darbyshire, Darrel DeFrance and Matt Bailey.

Frankel used his runner-up finish to pad his points lead to nine (248-239) over Reed. Frankel also leads the points at 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa.

There were 27 late models in the pits, a somewhat disappointing figure considering the hype the race had received throughout the region. One track official felt the relatively low turnout could be at least partially blamed on the threatening weather much of Sunday morning and afternoon, plus the $4 a gallon gas that likely held back at least some (more) of the Iowa drivers who had been expected.

The race drew 28 late models in 2007 and 36 in 2006.

The $500-to-win modified feature belonged to Michael Long, who secured his eighth victory of the season in his usual dominant fashion. Long, now with 20 total victories, led the closing 16 laps ahead of Wyatt Lantz, Steven DeLonjay, Vance Wilson and Jeff Waterman.

Long upped his points lead to 21 (285-264) over Tony Dunker, who finished seventh. Long has led the points for 25 consecutive weeks dating back to April 2007 and has won 56 races at Quincy in the last 1 1/2 seasons.

John Oliver Jr. won his second stock car feature and overtook Chris Wibbell for the points lead (332-331) in the process. Oliver's tight feature victory over Jeff Mueller by .356 of a second was the fourth-closest of the season at the track.

Doug Huls, Andrew Griffin and Wibbell rounded out the top five.

Aaron Brocksieck's third feature victory in the hobby stocks kept him atop the series points. Brocksieck (267), Steve Carlin (264) and Wes Mayfield (259) are the top three contenders.

Brocksieck slipped past Jim Powell with three laps to go to take the lead. Powell had led 16 of the first 17 laps.

Powell, Jim Leffew, Travis Booher and Carlin made up the rest of the top five feature finishers.

-- seighinger@whig.com/221-3377

For more dirt track racing news, visit Steve Eighinger's blog — Stevie Dirt.