One of the last dirt races in the state of Wisconsin was conducted on Friday night, October 14th at the Spring Lake Speedway near Unity Wisconsin with the running of part one of the second annual Autumn Clash. SLS was completing its first full year of racing in 2016, having started their new endeavor last October when new promoter Scott Duval opened up the track with the first annual Autumn Clash.
SLS ran their first full season this year and overall had a very positive first full season. The crowds were good and I think even better than Duval probably was expecting. He ran a limited schedule of about a dozen races(give or take due to rainouts), and told me that he plans to schedule a ten night schedule for 2017. He feels that an every week program is just a little too much for his staff to handle and more than the fans want to see. His hope is to make every night special with some kind of special promotion and the every week thing starts to wear out come the heat and humidity of July and August.
Car counts for his first year were OK with some classes running stronger in numbers than others. Most of the local racers had either retired or sold off their dirt equipment with the track's status being so uncertain the last few years and Unity is in kind of the transition zone between the dirt tracks of western Wisconsin and the tar tracks of central Wisconsin. However, there is still plenty of interest in dirt track racing in that part of the state and Duval is expecting more local racers to start to get back into the sport if SLS shows stability and proves that they will be running for the long haul.
Duval surprised just about everyone when after weighing the options of the different sanctioning bodies, he chose to become sanctioned by NASCAR. While there aren't many other tracks near or far away using NASCAR sanctioning, he appears to be happy with it as he plans to continue with their sanctioning next year. In reality, he used WISSOTA rules to govern his racing except for the Modified class which used amalgamated rules that allowed WISSOTA, IMCA and USRA cars to all compete together.
Probably the biggest problem Duval ran into during his opening year was in the racing surface itself which was quite unsettled for most of the year. Some bad clay that had to be removed from the track set him back and there were some nights when they tended to over water the track, according to the drivers I talked to. Duval agreed that issue was of major concern to him and as a driver himself, he understands that the track must be in race ready shape for the drivers. A major addition of more clay is in the works for the off season.
This track issue would rear its head again for the Autumn Clash as the racing conditions were among the roughest that I have seen at a track since the opening nights of 2016. The track had a lot of bumps and ruts and the number one-two corner was really soft. This, along with the unfamiliarity of many of the drivers with the track along with the "devil may care" attitude that many drivers exhibit while running some of the late season shows, resulting in a night of many crashes and wrecks and an inordinate number of cars that suffered some major damage.
One of the things about this program that had Duval most excited and I must say had me intrigued to was the mixing of classes from the eastern part of the state with the local cars and western Wisconsin cars running under different rules packages.
The Modifieds were running under their own rules package and this resulted in about half the field running under WISSOTA rules, about half under IMCA rules and a couple of USRA and even UMP rules cars on hand. Some of the IMCA cars kind of cheated the rules by adding spoilers while others chose just to rune like they normally do.
The Modified main saw local racers Jared Loos and Chris Oertel battle early until they got together and Loos was sent to the tail. Kevin Adams then took advantage of this to blow past Oertel on the high side and he then controlled the rest of the event. It was reported to me later that Adams was already testing out his Florida setup, running his "big" motor and no spoiler but I can't confirm that. Matt Gilbertson towed all the way from western Minnesota with his MB and finished a strong second ahead of Ryan Aho, driving Darrell Moe's car that promoter Duval himself drives when he's not busy promoting.
Most of the Super Stocks were running under WISSOTA rules with several of the eastern Wisconsin Grand National cars also racing. The Grand Nationals were to run their in their own class on Saturday but were allowed to run with the Super Stocks on Friday. I was told that the Grand Nationals might have a little more power but didn't handle near as well as the Supers, based on their rules. It turned out that the Supers dominated but they also out numbered the Grand Nationals by two to one along with having track experience.
Jeff Klopstein Jr led eighteen and a half laps until he made one mistake and was passed by ABC track champion, the "Flying Farmer" (how many of them are there anyway?), Nick Oreskovich, who went on for the win.
For Midwest Modifieds, it was again up to everyone to run their own rules. Midwest Modifieds, WISSOTA style, dominated but there were almost ten Sport Mods on hand along with a few B Mods from USRA.
Coming from the fourth row, Chippewa Fall's Michael Truscott was the winner. Truscott, who has a twenty grand to win victory this Fall among his special event wins, used the high side to fly past the competition for the win. Much of the remaining field was most focused on trying to become the first racer to put a hole in Duval's wall as they were creaming the concrete from nearly every angle possible. It was a devastating night on the equipment and one in which the wrecker drivers were hoping that they had filled their fuel tanks, they were making so many runs back and forth to the pits! Less than half the field was able to see the checkered.
What seemed as the most unfair pairing actually turned out to be one of the better features of the night. The IMCA style Stock Cars were making their first appearance at the track and were running a complete show on Friday, to then be replaced by the WISSOTA style Street Stocks on Saturday. While they both look similiar, the Stock Cars have a whole lot more horsepower than the Streets while having to weigh more and running the IMCA tire. Most people(including the Street Stock drivers who opted to give it a go), felt that they were running at a severe disadvantage and wouldn't be competitive.
With an excellent showing of Shawano based Stock Cars, there was a strong field of cars from both quarters for the race and while they didn't win, the Street Stocks showed that while they didn't have the power to pass the Stock Cars, they did have enough speed that they could maintain their positions and make it tough for the Stockers to get by.
Kyle Frederick, one of the better Stock Car drivers in the state, did win the race when he was able to use his power to make an outside pass on a restart. Paul Diefenthaler, who runs a Street Stock in eastern Wisconsin that uses very similar rules to the WISSOTA cars, finished second and Jay Kesan, driving a WISSOTA Street, finished third.
Those four feature races were the only ones completed as a bad wreck in the Pure Stock feature required transporting a driver to the hospital and without another ambulance on the premises, the time that it would have taken before the race could have been restarted was prohibitive and the event was called complete with the Pure Stock feature partly completed. The Hornets split their prize money equally. It was later reported that the Pure Stock driver was released from the hospital with no apparent injuries.
With well over a hundred and fifty cars on hand, there were many races to be run. And while they started pretty much on time, just running that many events took a considerable amount of time. Factor in all the grinding crashes that took time to clean up and things got quite late. The track must also accept part of the blame, as they were quite slow restarting races and there was a lot of unneeded laps taken between each event before things proceeded. The bottom line was that it was nearly one thirty am before they finally stuck a fork in the action.
However, I did find the racing entertaining and it was not a bad show by any means. There was a good crowd on hand and they seemed pretty accepting to the late night. When they got tired and had enough, they simply packed up and either headed home or down to the party which was already going strong long before the final checkered waved. After all, it IS Wisconsin and the beer must flow!
The second half of Duval's doubleheader was rained on on Saturday and for SLS, their first full year of racing is now complete.
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