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Central Arizona Speedway

With the first week of the Ernie Mincy Early Thaw completed at Central Arizona Raceway near Casa Grande, the second week began with three straight nights of racing on January 25-27, racing Thursday through Saturday night. It provided three more opportunities for drivers from the upper Midwest to have some fun in the sun and break up their winter with some great racing opportunities.

The same five classes were in action once again, with WISSOTA Late Model drivers blended in with the rules used for this event for the Late Model class. The same was done for WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds in the track’s Limited Mod class. A few WISSOTA drivers also branched off by running in the Modified class, which was under IMCA rules for this series.

Most of the drivers from the first week returned, while a few new faces arrived for the last three shows. In the Late Model class, Dave Mass unfortunately blew the motor in his car during the Wednesday night practice session, and his racing week was done. He reverted to spinning wrenches for Billy Moyer, who was driving one of Don Shaw's cars.

Zach Johnson had blown a motor in the Shaw-owned car he was racing to wrap up week one, but they replaced the motor and Johnson responded with three finishes in the top 10. It appeared he has lost nothing of his skills behind the wheel of a Late Model, where he once had sparkled. At the end of the week, rumors persisted that he might be seen behind the wheel of a Late Model from time to time once he gets back home to Minnesota.

Chad Becker headed home after the first weekend of racing. He drove one of Denver Nickeson's cars that was rebranded to look like Becker's car. Nickeson, in fact, switched over to driving that car to start week two, but when that vehicle also acted up, Nickeson heard South Dakota calling and he headed back to the Midwest.

After watching the first week, Matt Gilbertson caught the itch and climbed behind the George family’s Modified, out of Rapid City. He raced a couple of nights, making both features.

Beau Nave was involved in a bad wreck the last night of week one and the car was too damaged to continue. He stayed and helped out the large Montana delegation that arrived for week two.

Shane Sabraski, Josh Zimpel, Scott Ward, Shane Edginton, Brandon and Ryan Corbett, Cole Schill, Dustin Bluhm, Charlie Olsen, Dustin Strand, Jason Strand, Tyler Peterson, Zach Johnson and Matt Aukland all made the three features for the Late Models to close out their trips.

Among the most notable results for these drivers was a fine second-place finish in a main by Ward. He struggled the first week, but turned it around before his long trip back to South Dakota. Edginton drove to a strong third-place finish on the last night of the series.

Bluhm took the world of Late Model racing by storm when he led all 35 laps to win the finale of the series, surely his biggest win ever in a Late Model. He fought off Ricky Weiss for most of the race for the win.

Dustin Strand showed great consistency with two third-place finishes and a fourth-place run. He had to hustle back from a brief midweek family vacation and barely made it back in time to race on Thursday, but his results were very good. Look for him to be a real force in the Red River Valley in 2024.

TPO was again very fast during week two, with a feature win, a fourth, and a top-10 finish. He will again be tough to beat in 2024, and don't be surprised if he opens some eyes in his open motor shows, too.

Michael Leach, Matt Sparby and Rusty Kollman made two of the feature races and Blaine Doppler also made a show, too. Leach was involved in the big crash Friday that resulted in his car needing a new front clip.

The Limited Mod class included many of the WISSOTA Mid Mod drivers but only included a few changes in faces behind the wheel. Onyx Johnson had to go back to school in Minnesota and play some hockey, so dad Zach drove his car the second week. Zach had three top-10 finishes, including a best of third.

Scott Bintz had to head back to North Dakota, but he left his race cars on hand to run. Travis Saurer continued to drive one, with dad Ron in a second Bintz-owned car. It was good to see him behind the wheel; the rumor was that he was going to retire after 2023. Despite being on the long side of 70 years old, he can still wheel a race car. The hope is that he will again be racing for the upcoming year.

The highway between Great Falls, Montana and Arizona opened up for the second week with three Montana Mid Mod drivers on hand, along with Wyoming's Cory Wilder arriving to race on week two. Dayton Liscum, Jon Tribble and Dana Young represented their area well, with all four making all three shows and improving as the week progressed.

Along with Johnson, Jake Smith, Jess Brekke, Blake Adams, Jory Berg, Preston Carr, Ryan McCleary, Lucas Rodin, Ted and Tyler Doell, Jordan Henkemeyer and C.R. Eisenzimer all made all three shows.

The man to beat for all the shows was Rodin; he won an amazing five of six feature races, along with four heat race wins. He is absolutely the master of Mid Mod racing, but also tipped that the car that he was running as a Mod might turn into a WISSOTA Mod for 2024.

The only driver to beat Rodin in a feature race was Adams, and he drove a spotless race to win on the fifth night. He also had a fourth and seventh-place finish to complete the week.

The other driver to show great consistency was Smith. While it irritated them mightily that they didn't visit victory lane, their second-, third- and fifth-place finishes showed they were always fast. They now await their new Modified while offering their current car for sale.

There were also a handful of drivers who raced in the Modified class. Both Rodin and Brekke had their hands full, as they raced in both of the open-wheel classes. Both made all three features against large fields of cars, with Rodin's best effort an eighth-place finish, and Brekke’s an 11th. Devin Fouquette made two of the three features, as did Michael Leach. Mark Maga also participated on two occasions.

It was a busy two weeks for announcer Ron Krog, as he called the action in all five classes. Three of them included drivers he was unfamiliar with, but he did a great job getting to know them and providing tidbits on many of them. Krog tells me that the plan for him is to again call the action at I-94 on Friday nights and KRA on Thursday nights. He was considering doing something on Saturday nights, but the mention of such drew an evil glare from his wife, so he backed off on that. As it is, he will return to Minnesota to call several snowmobile races yet before spring arrives.

I ran into Ron Schreiner one night as he was watching the show. Schreiner lives in Tucson but will again keep a race car in the upper Midwest and fly home on occasion to race at the local tracks.

One of the highlights of our trip was a tour of the palatial resident that Paul Mueller has built in the Phoenix area. Mueller, who had his hands full managing a three-car team of Late Models this week, has built a large palace that incorporates his house, a large shop and quarters for his drivers/crewmen all under one roof. It's a really unique place he has.

Thanks for this great two weeks of racing go out to Don Shaw and the whole staff from I-94 Speedway. This is quite an undertaking for Shaw; he moves much of his staff from Minnesota to Arizona and then promotes a six-night series of races. What is so special about it is that the rules are crafted so as to make the WISSOTA cars competitive and offer them a great chance to race in the winter, in a warmer clime. The drivers really responded for his this year and I heard many comments from people who were impressed by how many drivers pulled from the upper Midwest to race way out in Arizona.

The crowds were up significantly from last year and Shaw was pleased with the crowd sizes. No dates have been set for next year's shows yet, but it sounds like the series will most definitely take place again. There may be more shows and a shorter break in between programs. I believe more drivers than ever will be interested in racing out there in 2025, as the shows were well organized, the pay was fair and everyone was treated well.

East Bay Raceway Park

From Arizona, we made the long drive to Florida for some more dirt track racing at legendary tracks like East Bay Raceway Park and Volusia Speedway Park.

Up first was East Bay, a third-mile oval located south of Tampa that is starting its last year of racing. The land was purchased five years ago by another entity, but they gave the speedway a five-year extension on racing that ends this year.

We saw six nights of Modified racing to begin our journey, under UMP sanctioning. There were three WISSOTA drivers on hand who did well and spoke to the strength of Modified racing in our region.

Ryan Gierke from Villard, Minnesota, Joseph Thomas from Glyndon, Minnesota and Montana's Michael Leach all made their first-ever appearances at East Bay. All wanted to check EBRP off their bucket list of tracks.

Gierke was driving his SSR chassis and was using an 830 horsepower stump puller from Tim's Automotive in Bloomer, Wisconsin. UMP rules are quite wide open and the motors used in the Modifieds are bigger and contain more horses than most Late Models. Gierke did an excellent job of racing at East Bay, making all six feature races. His rim-riding style of driving was a favorite of announcer Larry Jewitt, who pointed out his high-groove style several times.

In addition to making the six A-mains, Gierke was among the highest six in overall points going into the final night. This meant he didn’t have to race the final heat races of the week, and guaranteed him a starting position in the top six for the 75-lap main event that paid $5,000. Gierke was running in the top five until he got a piece of another driver, who was going around. Gierke was sent to the tail of the pack, with his 17th-place finish being the worst of the whole week. Nevertheless, he did a great job all week.

Sharing a truck for the ride down with Gierke was Joseph Thomas. He ran the same car he raced at the Dome. In fact, father Corky told me they just washed it after they got back from St. Louis and it was ready to go for Florida.

Unfortunately, they didn't have a giant motor to run and were instead using a 650 horse USMTS motor, the biggest they had in their arsenal. And it showed. Despite driving well and having a car that handled well, the missing horsepower showed, particularly when they had to run the cushion, and as they tried to pass cars on the outside and on starts and restarts. Nevertheless, Thomas made two features and come painfully close on at least two other occasions, coming up one spot short of qualifying for feature races. However, Corky told me that they didn't come expecting to win features, but instead were looking for laps and experience, both of which they accomplished.

The third driver with a WISSOTA connection was Montana's Leach, who raced quite a few Late Model races in our area last summer. He flew home from Arizona on Sunday after Shaw's series ended, jumped in a truck in Charlotte, and headed for Florida, missing just the first night when no points were awarded.

After that, he was dynamite. He made all five feature races and won two of them against some of the strongest Modified drivers in the country! He joined Gierke as one of the top six in preliminary points and was running in a strong position in the finale when a flat tire sent him to the pits for a change. He then drove back through the pack before settling for a sixth-place finish. Saturday night marked his 20th race of the 2024 season so far, even more than me!

Leach told me that while he will be living in Charlotte this summer and doing most of his racing in the Southeast, his plan is to come back to the Midwest and race the entire WISSOTA Challenge Series with his Late Model, in an effort to take the points title away from the legend Pat Doar! They will house the car somewhere in the area and then fly in to prep and race the car.

When he is done racing in Florida, he will fly back to Arizona and then drive their hauler back to North Carolina so that they can fix the damage done in the Central Arizona crash that ended his racing one day short. At just 20 years of age, his career certainly looks to be a bright one.

The last two weeks of my vacation involved seeing a lot of Late Model action at two different tracks in Florida — East Bay Raceway Park and Volusia Speedway Park. Lucas Oil Late Models, DIRTcar Late Models and World of Outlaw Late Models were all on the schedule for us. Honestly, it was the same cars just running under three different sanctioning bodies.

Some years we do have a few WISSOTA-licensed Late Model drivers who venture down to Florida to run with these groups, but this year there were none. So there are not a lot of results to report from Florida. There were a large number of familiar faces seen in the grandstand and roaming the pits at these two tracks, however.

The crowds were huge for all events at both places, with East Bay's races particulularly memorable. This track will be closing down in October and this was the last Winternationals series there forever.

Among the folks who were spotted at East Bay were Mike Balcaen, Ron and Trevor Anderson, Scott Witkowski, Harlan Breeschotten, Steve Arpin, Randy Spacek and Bill Byholm, Scott Hansen, Ashley Anderson and John Johnson from Red Cedar and a host of others.

At Volusia I saw Les and Patti Duellman, Shane Edginton, Harry Hanson, the John Kaanta family, Matthew Larson helping his father, Bill Gross, and Kristi Richardson — with Jay assumed to be close by. Lots of people were looking to see a little February racing and escape the cold temperatures, of which there really weren't any.

The first night of East Bay rained out, but I was able to get over to Volusia instead to catch the Modifieds as they raced on the huge half mile. It was a features-only night and Joseph Thomas drove to a third-place finish in his feature, while Michael Leach was sixth and Ryan Gierke was 13th. All three had good runs there, as that series continued.

The Volusia series rained out on the final night and teams received an early start as they headed back home. For those folks NASCAR inclined, they patiently waiting until Monday, February 19 for the rain delayed 500 to be held.

For us, we're already back home in Wisconsin. We were lucky enough to see plenty of good racing at five different locations in three states, see many familiar faces and meet many new people. The weather was great overall, but we were also happy that it was so nice at home. Can you say early spring?

The racing news for the new season does not stop however, and right now we are working on a big announcement that will certainly change our regular racing routine with some exciting changes for 2024 and beyond. It is a time of uncertainty but also one of new enthusisiam for the future.