The last dirt track races of the 2016 racing season in the state of Minnesota commenced on Friday, October 21st with opening night of the seventh annual Topless Nationals at the Ogilvie Raceway.
This race, which was not highly supported in its first couple of years, has seemed to gain traction in recent years as it appears that many drivers like the novelty of racing topless once a year and the last race of the year is the perfect time to do such a promotion, since many racers at getting ready to tear their cars apart at this point of the season anyway. And it seems that more and more, there is a core of racers that just can't get enough racing in, and are willing to race just as long as tracks will offer them events. All classes except the Hornets ran without tops with it being optional for the Street Stocks but just about all of them removed their roofs too.
In the last couple of years this race has started attracting a real cosmopolitan field of drivers, representing three sanctioning bodies and several states. And there has not been a shortage of drivers willing to race either. Friday night, one hundred and sixty three drivers signed in to race, representing five states and three Canadian provinces. This alone is an impressive figure with the furthest tow likely being Kody Scholpp who pulled all the way from Lampman SK. There were also a number of drivers from both Dakotas as well as the Winnipeg area along with one lone entrant from Iowa.
The classes racing on Friday included Modifieds, Midwest Modifieds, Super Stocks, Street Stocks and Hornets. The Hornets ran a complete show on Friday with the other classes running heats only. They will have their B's and features on Saturday night and the UMSS Traditional Sprints will also join the show for a complete program too.
While most drivers represented the host WISSOTA sanctioning body, there were also IMCA and USRA cars on hand too. Everybody ran under their own rules package including tires and I didn't notice any huge disparity between the cars in the various groups.
There was one IMCA Stock Car that ran with the Street Stocks and I thought that he would dominate but Dan Mackenthun didn't show the speed that I would have expected from him. Perhaps they had him "choked down" after Andy Altenberg came in and blew away the Street Stocks, as he should have, a couple of years ago. I will have to check on this. A couple of IMCA Hobby Stocks also ran with the Street Stocks too.
One of the new drivers I chatted with was Brent Thompson from Minot North Dakota who was on hand with his Sport Mod. Brent works in the oil patch in North Dakota and moved West after originally living in southern Minnesota. In fact, he will be moving back to the Twin Cities suburbs soon and will likely race some Minnesota IMCA tracks as his job is two weeks on and two weeks off. His father runs Dakota Trackside, the prominent parts dealer in North Dakota. Brent was just hoping to be competitive in Ogilvie and in fact, ran a good third in his heat. However, with passing points setting the fields in all classes, it was hard to determine whether or not he had made the main.
Jeff Massingill was on hand with a new Modified ride for himself. Jeff, who prefers the Late Models and wished they were running them this weekend like last year, was driving a Rocket from Ruhlmann chassis that his Modified car owner Johnny Carpenter had just picked up. Massingill admits that he does not like the Modifieds with the vast majority of his racing experience being in fendered cars. Jeff had a couple of days off this week as he runs a school bus service for a couple of school districts in northern Minnesota and with MEA this week, there was no school, thus no work for him. Jeff tipped that he will be turning wrenches for J.R. Haley for the indoor event in St. Louis as Haley will be bringing Ricky Thornton Jr. to that event as his driver.
Another driver I talked to was a third generation racer from the renowned engine building family from St. Paul Minnesota, the Kelley family. Matt is the son of Mike Jr. and Mike Sr. was the originator of Kelley Racing Engines in St.Paul, a builder of racing engines since the 1960's. Matt is a young driver just getting his feet wet in the sport and is driving an older MidMod that his father Mike Jr used to race. Later, Matt's uncle Shaun would also show up with his car to race in the MidMods also.
It was a rough night for recently crowned WISSOTA national Street Stock Champion Tim Johnson from Brainerd. He was battling in a heat race for position when contact occurred with another car and in what I thought was a questionable call at best, Johnson was sent to the rear. In his haste to get back to the front of the field, he got sideways and caused another spin and with the two spin rule, the new national champion was sent to the pits, where he will have to charge from the tail Saturday night.
Things didn't get better for Johnson in the other two classes he races in either. A big winner in both Modifieds and Super Stocks as well as his Streeter, he was leading qualifying races in both classes when he got caught and passed by Joey Jensen and Dave Mass respectively, something that very rarely happens to Johnson. I guarantee that he'll really be driving harder than normal on Saturday to make up for what happened in his heats.
The "Big O" was decorated up for this event, as they are hosted a Breast Cancer fund raising event this weekend. The walls all the way around the track are a freshly painted pink as well as all the corner tires. Even the rules on the event flyer are printed in pink!
A total of eighteen qualifying races were held on Friday night. With passing points being used in all divisions, some of those who particularly prospered were Sketter Estey who came from ninth to win a MidMod heat, Mass who came from sixth to win a Super Stock heat, Jensen who came from ninth to win a Modified heat, and both Dave Cain and Josh Angst who came from sixth to win other Modified heats. Newly crowned Midwest Modified national champion Jeremy Nelson won heats in both the MidMods and Mods, driving his MB in the Mods and this week substituting his MB MidMod for a his GRT chassis.
The Hornets wrapped up the night with their feature event of the weekend and the nonstop twenty lap headliner went to Jason Reinke. Reinke set a torrid pace and he lapped all but four other competitors in the seventeen car field.
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