Tuesday night, June 20th found me at a highly respected racing facility for an interesting event. I was at the 141 Speedway near Francis Creek Wisconsin for the preliminary to the preliminary to the Clash at the Creek, the ten grand to win IMCA Modified event. But on this night it wasn't the Modifieds that held center stage but the Late Models of the Dirt Kings Late Model tour who were running their fourth event of the year.
Of course, 141 Speedway is the highly decorated dirt track that not that many years ago was a blacktop track that was ready to fold, and now look at where they are. Under the ownership of Toby Kruse and the Ratajczak brothers, they pack in the crowds for their Saturday night shows, have plenty of race cars and have made many improvements to the facility. After a bumpy off season when they and the local elected officials weren't seeing eye to eye on some issues involving parking, camping and other crowd flow issues, things have been ironed out enough for everyone to move foward and 141 to schedule another aggressive season of racing, with a number of special events.
None however, are any bigger than the Clash at the Creek with Modifieds from a wide area in attendance to go for the large posted purse.
Tuesday night was night number one of this event, a night reserved for Modified practice along with Stock Cars and Sport Mods which will also be running shows on Wednesday and Thursday. However, Kruse if nothing if not but a sharp businessman. Rather than having no one in the stands for the practice night, Toby came up with a plan to run one class of cars in a quick, full show along with the extended practice for other divisions. He first tried this last Fall at his two day end of the season event where he ran the WDLMA Late Models. The crowd was good and the show was a quick one and it clearly was a winner, as the Late Models were again scheduled for the opening night event, this year under the sanctioning of the Dirt Knights, the new organization that was forced after buying out the assets of the WDLMA.
The Dirt Knights have been a solid hit so far this season, drawing good fields of cars and putting on professionally run shows so far at Luxemburg, Angell Park and Shawano. Again on Tuesday, even with it being a week night, they still drew a solid field of twenty four Late Models, split about in the middle between those that race at Shawano and those that race at Plymouth. It was apparently just a little too far for the WISSOTA drivers to make it tonight. Nine of the top ten and thirteen of the top fifteen in current points pulled to 141 to race.
The action started at 6 pm with a solid, nonstop hour of practice for all classes that are racing this week. For those interested in the Modifieds, along with most of the top IMCA runners in eastern Wisconsin, some of the out of state drivers spotted practicing included Tom Berry and Lance Mari from California, Kyle Strickler and Kenny Schrader from North Carolina, Mike Garland and Bone Larson from Illinois, Hunter Marriott from Missouri, Jordan Grabouski and Dylan Smith from Nebraska, Billy Kendall from Minnesota and Iowa drivers Cory Dripps, the Browns, Kelly Shryock, Shane Demey and Darin Duffy. I'm sure there were also others that didn't practice.
At 7 pm, the Late Models came to the track for their heat races on the super slick and black, quarter mile, egg shaped oval that can and does give grief to many drivers. However, the Late Models did a nice job racing the track, and even those unfamiliar with it did a good job as there was only one yellow flag needed during the preliminaries. Series officals opted to move everyone into the main, avoid running a B with passing points setting the main lineup.
It was then time for more practice for all classes and in an interesting turn of events that I may have never seen before, Late Models were out on the track getting extra practice, even though they had already ran their preliminary events.
At 8:30 pm, practice was shut down again and the Late Models took to the track for their thirty lap main event. All the practice laps saw the inside lane get used pretty heavily and with the tight corners at 141, it would seem that the low groove would work much better. However, when the green flag dropped, it would be just the opposite. Mike Mullen was on the pole and seemed like a likely winner, but Bret Swedberg went to the high side and made the outside momentum work as he jumped into the lead. Mullen would challenge him but so also would Ron Berna, Nick Anvelink and Jared Siefert.
Swedberg would continue to lead but his margin was small and there were about a half dozen cars swapping positions behind him. Early on, Mitch McGrath would be very entertaining as he jumped to the high side of the track and came charging to the front. So also did Justin Schmidt and they drew the crowd's attention with their daring high side runs. Unfortunately, both came to "croppers" when McGrath climbed the back stretch wall and almost flipped, yet never even backed off and came back to earth with his foot still in the firewall while Schmidt tried too hard and spun, triggering the first yellow.
Still Swedberg led but his lead was shorter as on the restarts, Mullen would challenge him again and again and as a couple of more yellows flew, it got dicier each time for Swedberg. Anvelink eventually worked himself to the low side of the track and following another yellow, this time took the lead. In the last few laps he would be challenged again by Mullen, but would hold on for the win. Swedberg either wore out the top side or his tires as he fell back to third at the finish after a valiant effort. Berna and Buhler would complete the top five as twenty one of twenty four starters were still on the track at the finish.
It was an entertaining main event and the best thing was that they were done at 9 pm. The other classes had another ninety minutes left of tire burning, but I chose to call it a night at this point. This unique way of handling the practice night is quite novel and perhaps something that other tracks might want to look at when it comes to scheduling the inevitable practice nights that precede many of the big races of the year. It certainly puts many more fans in the stands that wouldn't be there otherwise and once there, they buy food, drink and apparel.
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