The month of June has been a scramble so far, with lots of bad weather knocking many events for a loop throughout the Midwest. It would seem that no part of the Central U.S. has been spared the wet and stormy weather and it is starting to take its toll on some of the racing events.
For me, it has been another wild and crazy week and even though it is barely half over, all the events I have tried to take in so far have either been scared by the weather or completely eliminated. After Tuesday's close luck out at West Liberty, things got even crazier on Wednesday when instead of Modifieds in southern Minnesota, I would up with Sprint Cars in central Minnesota.
The plan was to attend the USMTS Modified event at the Dodge County Speedway in Kasson Minnesota. I was looking forward to this race, as Kasson has been closed and opened several times the past few years as they've struggled to make a go of it in recent years after historically being one of the strongest tracks in southern Minnesota. But times change, and the past few years have not been kind to them.
New promoter Chris Abts, who is also the Race Director at the Mississippi Thunder Speedway in Wisconsin, had a dream to try and bring the historic Dodge County Speedway oval back to life. He ran a couple of shows last year that were very successful so in 2016 he has tried to put together a complete schedule that would find the track racing most Sunday nights. The weather has killed him so far this year with several shows lost to rain and he has been struggling to try and make the finances work.
After another set back last Sunday that saw a great field of nearly one hundred cars in the pits but not so good in the grandstands, he had to take a step back and reorganize things moving forward. He didn't feel he could handle the USMTS show's risk so at the last moment Todd Staley agreed to step forward and take on the show himself.
In retrospect, it didn't make any difference as the weather concurred all anyway, and truly, was the track really wet enough to not race or not is a moot point. The weather wasn't conducive to attracting a crowd anyway, and Staley didn't want to take a "bath" on the promotion any more than anyone else would.
So, with Kasson cancelled, it was time to move on to plan B. The World of Outlaws Sprint Cars were scheduled to race on Tuesday at the Granite City Speedway in Sauk Rapids Minnesota along with WISSOTA MidMods but that show got rained out and postponed to Wednesday. I do not see many Outlaws races, particularly the Sprints, but since it was the only show in town and was only two and a half hours away, off I went.
I have not been to Granite City yet this year, although I made it there several times in 2015. The track now runs, as it has for the second year, on Friday nights, having switched from Sundays last year. With the crowded Friday night schedule in our area, I have just not made it over there yet in 2016.
John Sletto is the new Track Manager at Granite City, having replaced Chris Stepan who moved on to focus more on his F.Y.E. Motorsports special events schedule.
Granite City is a quarter mile oval with low banking and the Outlaws were making it into nearly an oval, rolling low into the corners and exiting high. The track has a tendency to get black and slick and while it started out relatively heavy Wednesday due to all the recent rains, it did slick up as the evening progressed.
A very nice field of twenty nine Sprints was on hand for this show, more than I would have expected. All the regulars were joined by a few locals, some with 360 powerplants and some borrowing or buying big motors, along with a few regulars from the River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks where the Outlaws move next. Unfortunately, the River Cities car that I would most have liked on hand to take on the Outlaws, Mark Dobmeier, was no where to be found.
It was a cool, windy and dank day but the grandstand was nearly full, even for the rain dated show and the biggest crowd favorite seemed to be Donny Schatz, which is not surprising given the closeness of his home area. Unfortunately, for all those hoping to cheer him on to victory, he had about as bad an evening as I have seen Schatz have in a long time.
He qualified slow, didn't make the cut during his heat and had to win a B feature against cars he shouldn't really be racing against just to make the main. Frankly, he looked really slow for some odd reason, given that he won this event last year.
The feature race was even worse as he was running close to being lapped when he slowed down suddenly and Greg Wilson turned to avoid him and flipped on his side, triggering the only yellow of the race. Schatz was also done and the ugly pool of liquid under his car when he was pushed off the track seemed to tell the tale. If I'm correct, that is now already the second DNF for his this year after having gone an inordinate number of races with no mechanical breakdowns.
Thirty laps on this small oval flies by, and it hardly allows time for anyone to mount any kind of a challenge unless they are starting right in front. Kerry Madsen was the early leader and he exchanged slide jobs with Shane Stewart early in the race. Brad Sweet came up and joined them and things started to get interesting among the top three just when the red was triggered.
Madsen led on the restart until he got bogged down leaving turn two and Stewart got past him. Then the track started to narrow up and the rest of the event saw the top three pretty much in order after that. It was a smooth feature and a quick event and the whole show was completed before 10 p.m.
The MidMods had only fourteen cars on this off night and second year driver Eric Lamm won the main, fighting off the challenge of Jeremy Nelson, who came all the way from the back after triggering an early race tangle .
A special thanks goes out to Tony Veneziano for his big time help Wednesday. I have been e-mailing back and forth for several years with Tony, and I usually hear from him every year after the Superfan numbers come out in February. Tony used to work for the Outlaws and now works for SLS Promotions, who were putting on this race. I ran into Tony Wednesday working the back gate, got to meet him in person for the first time and he was very helpful getting me into the pits for some pictures and roaming around.
There aren't a lot of tracks capable of, and willing to take on the risk of presenting the Outlaws. It's a big feather in the hats of the folks at Granite City that they successfully accomplished this for the second straight year and especially with the added headaches of using a raindate.
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