6-4 Page 38

Thursday, May 30

I finally had the chance to witness racing here on the tundra on Thursday, May 30. I managed to hitch a ride with my good friend and neighbor Dennis McCauley. His reason for the trip to Grand Rapids Speedway was to see some racing and connect with the Super Stock drivers who were there to compete.

If you weren’t aware, McCauley is the founder and operator of the FastLane Motorsports Northern Super Stock Series, so he was making contact with as many drivers as he could. The first of the series races was set for June 1 at ABC Raceway in Ashland, WI (but was later rained out).

There were five WISSOTA divisions on hand, as well as Northern Renegade Sprints. The Renegades alternate with the WISSOTA Late Models most weeks.

The track seemed to be okay at the start, but as the night wore on, the first and second turns began to disintegrate. This ultimately led to the cancellation of the two final features, for the WISSOTA Pure Stocks and Hornets.

As far as the weather went in Grand Rapids, it was comfortable with the temperatures in the mid 70s. Though the skies were threatening, not a drop of rain fell on the speedway.

Racing began with heat races in each division, and then were quickly followed by the feature events. The WISSOTA Modifieds were topped by Kevin Adams of Cameron, WI. In the WISSOTA Super Stocks, the winner of the feature event was Curt Myers, another Cameron, WI driver. The WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds were swept by David Simpson. And finally, the Northern Renegade Sprint feature was won by Ken Hron, a former longtime WISSOTA Modified racer. He has found his place in the Sprints, with a good number of feature wins.

There was a scary accident in the Pure Stocks during the heats. When the pack attempted to navigate the first and second turns, a car shot out of the middle of the pack straight up the track toward the thick woods. I joked with Dennis that it was going to be alright, as no trees showed any movement when the car reached them. I figured the car had not struck any big enough to do any damage.

The driver, however, had an apparent head-on collision with an elderly (just guessing) birch tree. He also appeared to have collected a sturdy pine tree!

When the dust cleared, only the trees were injured. Then, as a complete shock to me, the Pure Stock drove away from the incident. The front end seemed to be folded up but cars can be replaced or fixed. The important thing is there were no injuries.

It was a fun night of racing and I have to take a moment to thank my friend Dennis McCauley for helping me find my usual place in the grandstands.

I might as well give him a shout out about an incident on our way up to Grand Rapids as well. We were following one of those small SUVs and he was just getting ready to pass when a doe headed across Hwy 2, or tried to. The SUV was able to miss the doe, and Dennis was able to keep his new Chevy pickup on the road and missed rear-ending the SUV, but he was forced to accelerate past it hard to then avoid being rear-ended by a Halvor Lines semi — one that we had passed a few hundred yards before. We all came out of this deal only with pounding hearts!

I can only speak for Dennis and I, but I believe the driver of the SUV and passengers were also okay, — but I’m guessing pretty rattled!

As I was holding on while cars and deer whirled in front of me, I had looked up out the right hand corner of the windshield and straight into the eyes of the deer! That was quite an experience! It’s a good reminder that many of our racing travels across WISSOTA country require keen attention this time of year as we head to and from race tracks.

With two features cut from the program, we headed back toward Superior, getting back to my front door just before 11 p.m.

Friday, May 31

We finally got in a race at Gondik Law Speedway! The only laps made on the big 5/8ths mile oval until Friday was a Wednesday night practice session about three weeks ago. Since then rain has prevented us from putting anything bigger than the grader and packing trucks on it.

It was a nice day here on the tundra, even though it was partly cloudy. Clouds usually mean a chance of the dreaded “R” word, especially if the wind is blowing off the big ol’ Lake Superior!

This Friday the lake breeze remained out of the south and west, and racing was a go! We drew a total of 83 cars to the northland. Would you believe 22 of them were Late Models, all semi to semi-regulars on a weekly basis? And that was the largest car count of the evening. The next highest was in the WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds, with 20 entries.

We have been to several tracks in northern WISSOTA country so far this season, and I have found that tracks who run them are struggling with car counts in the Pure Stocks and Hornets. That was the case here, with six Pure Stocks and eight Hornets.

Getting to the racing, I suspect most of the racers who showed up were looking for a track that was fast and challenging — and that’s what they got!

As racing progressed through the heat races, 11 of them, the track became what was a single, ultra-fast lane. It’s quite unusual to see the racers running around the bottom of the track, throwing clay up in the corners. It got to be quite a pile I noticed.

When Bob Broking was winning his Modified heat, he bumped the right rear up against what had become a 6- to 8-inch-high bank. It upset Bob’s car just a little, enough so he didn’t hit that again the rest of the race.

Once the heat races were finished, the track crew got out there and packed and graded the turns down. It looked as though the track gained most of its width back in the turns after that was done.

Joanne and I shared a Friday night special from JoJo’s Grab & Go (the track concession stand for those who don’t know). The special is mashed potatoes with hamburger gravy, green beans, a roll and a cookie for dessert. That was enough for the two of us. I think we’ll try that again when we next race. After eating half of that, my hunger was satisfied and I felt great the rest of the night.

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE