The George Scheffler Memorial was held on Friday, August 26th at the Oshkosh Speedzone Raceway. A Late Model special, this race was sanctioned by the Corn Belt Clash series and was the first night of a two night visit to eastern Wisconsin , with the Plymouth Raceway hosting the Corn Belt cars on Saturday.
Along with the Late Models, it was also the final night of the three race "King of the Ring" series for the IMCA Modifieds with a local point fund involved there as well as the purse for the night with the Grand National division completing the three division show.
Very good fields of cars were on hand in all three classes for this event which was played out before a large crowd of fans, anxious to see racing action and also anxious about the future of this fine racing facility. I will get into that part of the story later.
Forty one Late Models signed in to race on this night, more than I would have expected to see. While the Corn Belt Series brought only six of its top twenty point drivers and only ten in total that had raced a previous Corn Belt Series event in 2016, the local and area racers bought into participating in this race, which made all the difference. Many of the regulars that race the Manitowoc/Plymouth circuit plus those that race Saturdays at Shawano were on hand and several of them did quite well. This despite a tire situation that required those drivers to buy tires as the compounds used by the Corn Belt Series were different than those used by the other three tracks in question. While it seems minor, a couple of extra tires on the night's budget is around two hundred a fifty bucks or more, a pretty hefty entry fee. Series director Cam Granger promised to look into the situation and see if he could come up with a plan to solve the problem for next year. However, once again it was a situation of the tire companies dictating the sport and making the whole process more difficult for everyone involved.
When is the last time you can remember the tire companies pitching in to make things easier for the drivers or for the tracks to make a buck? But think how many times that tires have been nothing but a problem for sanctioning bodies, drivers and anyone else trying to make the sport grow or prosper? Especially so now with the issue of "tire cooking" that is threatening to tear to the core of the sport, while the tire companies step back, keep their hands clean of the situation and let everyone else involved battle it out while they offer zero in the way of helping solve the problem.
Dave Fieber, who is one of several drivers that races under the Seubert Calf Ranches sponsorship in this part of the country, recently moved back to the Fox River Valley region of eastern Wisconsin. He started out in this part of the country, then moved to western Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley for work and has now moved back to his old employer in Appleton where he recently bought a home while selling his other house in Chippewa Falls Wisconsin.
Fieber will probably not do much more racing this year as he gets settled in at his (old) new job so they will park his ride and instead roll out their WISSOTA spec motor car that Robby Bunkelman will drive in Fall special events throughout Wisconsin and Minnesota.
I also talked to the Schmidt Racing Team from eastern Wisconsin who field a pair of MB Customs for Jim and Justin Schmidt to race. The Manitowoc Speedway, where they race Late Models on Friday nights, will be closing this year as a Michigan Food Chain has bought much of the Fairground property just off I-43 in Manitowoc and plan to build a storage area there. While they left enough land for the county to continue to hold the Fair, the race track and grandstand will be leveled and the track will be history.
The only other track in eastern Wisconsin that races Late Models is Shawano and they race on Saturdays, the same as Plymouth. So, members of the eastern Wisconsin Late Model scene are currently looking for another track to race at and pair up with their Saturday night racing , as many feel these cars are just too expensive to only race once a week and like any true racers, they are looking for more opportunities. Much nervousness exists in the eastern Wisconsin community over this situation.
I used to really like the format for the Corn Belt Series events with them forgoing time trials and using passing points to set their fields. However, since they aligned with DIRTCAR , that is no longer the case and instead they qualify and line the heats straight up off time trials. The interesting mix of heats and the importance of them is no longer the case as they pretty much get in line and follow each other around the track. Three of the four heats were won right off the pole. And of course, even at Oshkosh, a place that prides itself at starting right on time and does need to do so because of a curfew, they were still a half hour late throwing the first green.
Mars has a record of doing very well at this track in recent years and that might be in part due to the fact that Oshkosh is relatively flat and gets very slick and dry and races much like the track that he cut his racing teeth on at the Red Cedar Speedway in Menomonie. In any event, while you rarely see someone move up very much to take the wins in these sorts of events, on Friday Mars started in the fourth row but quickly drove to the front, using both the inside and the tricky high side of the track where you could keep up your momentum but it was definitely the longer way around the third mile oval.
Dave Eckrich was the early leader after a good battle with Chris Simpson but Mars quickly made his presence felt. Seven laps into the race, there were a few sprinkles that started to fall and while they didn't affect the track at all, they got the crowd nervous.
Mars had the lead by lap thirteen and he stayed up front the rest of the way. Simpson got close a couple of times and right after Mars took over the lead, he faced his toughest challenge of the night as a group of about eight cars were running in a tight pack and he had to navigate his way through the traffic. However, he did an expert job of it and continued to keep a couple of lapped cars between himself and Simpson as most of the field matriculated to the low groove as the race concluded.
The forty lap event went nonstop and only ten cars were on the lead lap at the end. It was a disappointing night for area driver Mike Mullen who was scheduled to start on the outside pole and was thought to be a real contender. However, he was having motor problems and opted to start in the back and soon pulled off. It was also a tough night for Jason Feger who blew up a motor in his heat race and had to start the feature as a provisional. He quickly went a lap down which ended his chances. Also, Brad Mueller blew up during time trials and was done for the night.
Area racers Mitch McGrath and Nick Anvelink both did themselves proper with top five finishes. McGrath was knocking on Simpson's door at the end and perhaps even a little too aggressively so.
The Modifieds turned out an incredible forty seven car field for the evening with five heats and two B features necessary to set the grid for their feature event. Going into the final night of the "King of the Ring" series, Benji LaCrosse and Marcus Yarie were tied in the point standings and both did well early as they started the feature side by side in row two. LaCrosse went to the high side and quickly took over the lead, with Yarie chasing. LaCrosse's lead on the top side started to fade as Yarie was driving the bottom and moving in on him. Just as Yarie was ready to make a pass, LaCrosse must have gotten an e-mail as he dived to the inside down the front chute and cut off Yarie's progress and held on to the lead.
Shortly after, the lone yellow of the thirty lap race flew and on the restart, LaCrosse stayed on the bottom and to his credit, from this point on he pulled away as he clearly had the setup, no matter where he ran on the track. Yarie continued to run in second until near the end when he suddenly dived into the infield with major mechanical issues.
The feature was then LaCrosse's and so was the title. Tim Lemirande came from sixteenth to finish second and was trailed by Mullen, doing double duty, Brian Drexler and Steve Schneider.
The Grand Nationals are like a limited Late Model but carry bodies on them that almost look like ASA asphalt cars. They are very popular in eastern Wisconsin but are seldom seen anywhere else. Many tracks in the eastern part of the state race them but that's about the only place too. There were twenty one of them on hand Friday night.
Tim Doehling and Kenny Richards were battling for the lead late in their feature when they got together and Doehling spun with only three laps remaining. Richards was tagged for the offense, he headed to the pits at a high rate of speed and Doehling was restored to the point, after which he finished off the win. The Richards family builds chassis for this class and are very prominent in this part of the state as Larry Richards and Jeff Richards ended up second and third so we were very close to a top three sweep by the family, if circumstances had played out different or Kenny could have been just a bit more patient.
The wide, smooth and slick surface at Oshkosh seems to promote a lot of side by side racing, and few yellow flags. The speeds aren't blazing here but the competition more than makes up for the slow, slick surface. The feature races were a good example. Three full fields of cars for the main produced a total of five yellow flags in ninety laps of racing. There wasn't a single race all night that had more than two yellows and the one spin rule used in the two support classes made running off their heats pretty darn smooth. With one of the biggest weekly car counts in the state and an ultra fine facility, Oshkosh Speedzone Raceway is certainly one of the top tracks in the Midwest, bar none.
Here's the kicker that I was talking about earlier. Even though this place seems like manna from heaven, things are going anything but smooth here. In fact, there is at least an even chance that racing won't even take place here next year and that the entire facility might be leveled to make way for a concert stage!
Seems incredible, but that's what is happening right now. I spoke to both promoters, Jeff Lemiesz and Larry Stratton, who by the way, happen to be uncle and nephew to each other. Larry does most of the day to day physical work at the track and bowed to Jeff to tell me the politics behind the scenes that are dominating things right now.
Much of the problem currently is money and an increasingly higher demanded rent that the county wants from the promoters while, at least in the promoters viewpoint, promising very little in return.
Local politics is inter-meshed in the situation and a local non profit is whispering in the county's ear that they could use the land for much better things. Damaged egos of some of the players from the county are also a part of it, and trying to weed through the many layers of what is going on didn't allow Lemiesz the time to explain fully what is currently transpiring.
The promoters are asking all residents of the Oshkosh area to contact their local representatives and tell them how much they like the races and how much money the racing brings into the community. The process will be a difficult one and could possibly end up in court but that remains to be seen. Race fans in general should keep up to what is going on by checking the speedway facebook page because at some point, they may need support from the racing community as a whole, not just the local people.
To see how nice this place is and then to imagine that it could be leveled before the 2017 racing season even begins boggles the mind. Especially when there does seem to be room for both sides to exist and profit from a working compromise that would be beneficial to all. But when egos are in play, sometimes common sense is the first casualty.
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