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Saturday, June 22

Racing, thus far, this week (and this season) has been very scarce. Rainouts and wet tracks have been the reason, not the excuse. Only Grand Rapids was able to get the show in heading into the June 22 weekend, with Gondik Law and Hibbing, as well as Rice Lake and Ashland, falling to rain.

I talked our friend Dennis McCauley into riding up to Grand Rapids Speedway in Minnesota.

An interesting aside, here. I looked up a map on my phone that would show me Grand Rapids. Should have added the Minnesota, because, when the map came up on the screen, I was shown Grand Rapids, Michigan! Strange!

Anyhoo ... I met Dennis up at the store in Scanlon, MN and off we went to GRS for its six-division weekly program. We got there a bit early and Dennis went out into the pits to deliver checks from the last Fastlane Motorsports Super Stock Series.

There was a pretty good turnout of cars during an evening that started out pleasant. But, thanks to a nice wind, it became quite cold for me. I seem to feel the cold more as I get older.

With 84 cars on hand, it was a nice field, but I do wonder why they have such a tough time drawing WISSOTA Modifieds!? There were just seven entrants. It seems to me, not as a spectator, but a former racer, they could draw a larger number. I wonder how soon Johnny Broking will bring both the Modified and the new ride, the WISSOTA Late Model to the track when they both race? I'd like to see, if possible, at leas 10 cars in each class (if not more).

But, onto the racing! Following heat race action, the speedway presented Meet The Drivers night during intermission. Then, it was onto the racing.

In the WISSOTA Pure Stocks Jake Smith came all the way from 12th to take the win. Chaston Finckbone moved from seventh to second and was held off by Smith. Dustin Puffe was third, fourth went to Ethan Elhardt and fifth was Billy Binkley.

In the WISSOTA Modifieds the winner was Shane Sabraski from third, followed by fifth-starting Bob Broking, Charlie Castle, Ryan Jensen and Josh Beaulieu in the top five.

In the WISSOTA Late Models Kyle Peterlin started eighth and worked his way forward until he reached leader Johnny Broking. He was able to get past and raced off to a large lead and the victory. Broking maintained second as Shane Sabraski moved up from the sixth starting spot to take third. Harry Hanson and Mark Heinle completed the top five.

In the WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds David Simpson, who is trying for the National Championship in WISSOTA Mid Mods, moved up from his fifth starting spot to take the win. He outdistanced Joey Jensen in the closing laps. Mervin Castle III finished third while Mikey Blevins finished fourth and 13th-starter Sam Blevins finished fifth.

The WISSOTA Super Stocks took to the track for their feature event. Dustin Nelson started on the front row and immediately took the lead, leaving outside front-row starter Andy LaBarge behind and running away with the event. DJ Keeler moved from his fifth starting spot and tried to run down the leaders, but had to settle for a third place finish ahead of Dalton Carlson and Max Dondelinger in fifth.

As always, the drivers of the WISSOTA Hornets were awakened from their naps and flooded onto the track for the evening-ending feature. When all the racing and a couple of semi-serious caution flags were said and done, second heat winner Tristan McLynn came from the eighth starting spot to complete the sweep of the division ahead of Payson Patrin. Third was Kole Kampsen, who started outside the front row and managed a top three finish. Derrek Ament was fourth and McKenna Folstad moved up one spot to round out the top five.

And then, we were on the road home, talking and watching for deer (we saw two), and neither left the side of the road, to our pleasure!

Gotta thank Dennis for letting me “talk” him into making the trip; sorry about disturbing your night of watching TV on your couch!

Before I wind up this portion of the column, I want to touch on a couple of subjects. I got my issue of Speedway Illustrated and I was reading an article by the staff of Speedway Illustrated. It illustrates something I have been advocating all season about “special events,” such as the Fastlane Motorsports Northern Super Stock Series.

As Jason Beck writes in “Running the Big Show First” ... “I appreciate when tracks schedule the feature event early in the racing program. The featured division is what most of the fans paid to see, so making fans wait until after the kids’ bedtime seems like holding them hostage.”

I also have to defend the track prep workers spritzing the track between heat races recently, and sometimes a couple of heat races. It certainly helped keep down the dust. And it seems this season between races we've attended, there certainly has been a great amount of dust!

Sunday, June 23

Sunday we headed up Thompson Hill to Proctor, Minnesota to the fairgrounds, where Proctor Speedway awaited us.

Sunday felt more summer-like than I would have expected. Weather forecasts called for temps in the 70s and little — or better yet — no rain. For once they were bang-on, as the skies cleared, the temperature reached into the low 70s and the breeze blew resolutely from the west, northwest. It was great weather for racing!

It was also “Meet The Drivers” night and racers were there early to participate. If you don't know about Meet The Drivers, they bring the entire number of cars on hand in all divisions out and park them on the front straight. Then, all fans who wish to participate can walk out on the track and meet the drivers face to face. It’s great for the fans, especially for the kids, as the drivers bring along treats for the kids as well as autographs etc. It's a very popular start to a night of racing and it sure worked well this night.

The event filled the frontstretch from turn one back to turn four, three wide. There were 94 cars in attendance.

In feature action, the Mid Mods were set for 15 laps. Sam Blevins and Don Smith led the 23 car field to the green flag. I was watching Cody Carlson especially close, as he swept the division the previous time we raced. It wasn't going to happen this time, as he already had finished second earlier in the night in his heat. He started off the 15-lapper outside the second row, a decent starting spot. He and Blake Adams as well as Tyler Vernon and others raced closely; Cody made it to third and was being harassed for the position when he suddenly slowed and stopped on the infield just off the track, bringing out a caution flag.

As the event continued, Blake Adams, Tyler Vernon, Mikey Blevins, Sam Blevins, Eric Anderson and Jimmy Latvala battled near the front. When it was all over, who else but Joey Jensen came from his ninth starting slot to take the win. Adams was second, Vernon was third, Mikey Blevins was fourth and Jimmy Latvala was fifth in a quite entertaining run.

Next they rolled out the WISSOTA Super Stocks for their 15-lap feature, starting all 18 cars. Starting on the front row were Ironwood's Pat Beeksma and Chisholm's Mikey Vajdl. Scott Lawrence started back in the 17th starting slot and began to move toward the battle up front until he encountered a problem, slowed and stalled just off the track, bringing out a caution. He was helped off the track and was able to get back in the battle, but wasn't able to make much progress as he finished 15th in the final rundown.

Back up front Dylan Nelson drove from his sixth starting spot to take the win by a pretty good margin over second running and 10th-starting Curt Myers. DJ Keeler, Mikey Vajdl and Beeksma were the top five.

Next were the WISSOTA Late Models for their 20-lap go. It was sort of a rough start to the race, as it took a bit to get it started. In one of the early laps, front-runner Harry Hanson experienced some sort of breakdown and spun at the exit of turn four and went off on a wrecker. Meanwhile veteran Tim McMann, who has a few track championships at the speedway, was leading his first feature since turning 70 years old a couple weeks before. We then found out that Harry Hanson was also 70 years old, about a month and a half older than Tim!

On a later restart with Tim still out front something happened, there seemed to be a scuffle in turn one and Jeff Massingill came out on top and looked to win his second feature at the speedway this season, but the restart was called back. On the ensuing restart, Danny Vang worked his way past McMann and Massingill to take the lead. Meanwhile, it appeared McMann was fighting an issue with the car or tires, as he fell back to finish in the seventh spot after a good run previous to that.

Back up front Vang did a great job of holding off then pulling away a bit from Massingill, Derek Vesel, Lukas Koski in fourth and Aaron Lillo.

The only car to not start the main event was Kevin Burdick, who had night-ending trouble in his heat race.

In the WISSOTA Modified 20-lap feature Brady Uotinen started from the pole and decided he liked the clear track and raced away from fifth-starting Jeffrey Wood to take the feature win. Andrew Inman had another fine run since moving up into the WISSOTA Mods to take third, as he slipped past a fading Nick Oreskovich into the spot. Brandon Copp finished in fifth.

To finish off the evening there were feature races for the WISSOTA Pure Stocks and Hornets, and the Pure Stock feature was won by Brent Mindock. He completed the sweep over Chaston Finckbone, Jake Smith, Dylan Shelton and Anthony Schultz.

In the WISSOTA Hornet event Ashland's DeJay Jarecki fended off A.J. House for the win in the 12-lap main event. Nikota Larson, Carson Gotelaere and Michael Teggatz finished in that order in the top five.

You know I'd been wondering how old Tim McMann was getting to be. It does not surprise me that Tim and Harry Hanson can still be competitive at their ages. Both men have so much experience and seem to be very healthy for their ages.

We have a lot of great racing coming up and I pray that we can get it all in!