The USMTS is making a swing through Northeastern Wisconsin this week, the first time that they have been in this region since 2006. Also, three of the four tracks they will be visiting will be new ones for the organization with only a limited number of drivers still running the series when they last visited Luxemburg. The other tracks they will be hitting this week at Toby Kruse's 141 Speedway near Francis Creek, the Oshkosh Speedzone and the Plymouth Dirt Track.
Even Luxemburg will look new and different to the veteran drivers as the track has been widened out since their last visit, new Musco lights are in place and the pit are has been moved off the three and four corner to the opposite end of the track where the one and two corner is. New to me even, since I was not at the track last year when the new promoters took over was that the pit gate was moved back to the first turn and entering race cars drive West near the back chute to the newer pit area.
Of course, Northeastern Wisconsin is the heart of IMCA country with virtually all the tracks in this area under the IMCA sanctioning body. The key to getting a decent field of open Modifieds will be to either bring in a lot of cars that run other sanctioning bodies but can adapt to USMTS rules or convince some of the locals to come out and "play" with the USMTS.
What they got was a little bit of both as several western and central Wisconsin Modified drivers joined the action for this week and about ten of the eastern Wisconsin drivers slapped on spoilers and bolted on American Racer tires and joined the action. I was told that the Hoosier tires would even be allowed this week but the only car I saw that was running the IMCA tire was the #10 of Paul Parker. It did make things more interesting for the local fans when they had some of their favorites to cheer for but quite frankly, it was far from the strongest field that the USMTS ever fielded which was reflected in where some of the drivers showed up in the finishing results. Aside from the debating on the merits of IMCA virsus USRA or any other sanctioning body, one thing I can say without doubt is that open wheel Modifieds look a heck of a lot better with spoilers on the back of them!
USMTS showed thirty three entrants even though Jason Hughes was not fielding an entry on this night. I'm not sure if they have some provision for "emergency" points like some of the other sanctioning bodies but they showed him in the lineup for both a heat and B Feature even though he didn't have a race car on the grounds.
The reason that Hughes sat out was that he destroyed a car in a wreck in Oklahoma last weekend, a wreck I was told was so violent that he was very lucky he wasn't seriously hurt. Anyway, he is still physically recovering so did not participate on this night and I'm not sure if he plans to race at all during this weekly swing.
Here's an interesting story about why the pit gate was changed last year. A track official told me that the race cars would come into town off the main highway, turn into the fairgrounds and head to the track and the people of the town never would see the race cars. Now, with them coming in the other end of the track, they are forced to take a street that takes them right through the downtown area of Luxemburg so that everyone sees the cars and hopefully remembers that there are races on that night! In fact, that track official told me they encouraged the drivers to make an extra lap of the downtown area with their haulers before coming to the fairgrounds so that everyone on the street would see their big rigs.
How different is this from most tracks where they want the big trailers to avoid the busy downtown areas of a city if at all possible?
Last year Eric Mahlik took over as the promoter of Luxemburg Speedway after there was a real chance that the track would shut down due to a lack of someone to run the track. Once a big time track for Friday night racing, things had diminished in the past few years and the promoter wanted out and there was no one to replace him.
Mahlik comes from a family of racers on both dirt and asphalt and he himself raced IMCA Modifieds for a number of years. As a former all Big Ten Ten defensive lineman for the Wisconsin Badgers, he commands quite a presence in the pit area and pit personal seldom want to "take him on", that is if they have any brains at all. Mahlik's "claim to fame" is that he once "sacked" Drew Breese according to the track announcer.
On this night, Mahlik returned to his roots as he raced a borrowed Street Stock on this night. After winning a heat race, he had mechanical difficulties early in the feature event and was an early retiree.The fact that Mahlik was racing and that the support class payoffs were available at the USMTS trailer following the event makes me think that this race was Staley's and not either Mahlik's or the Fair Board of Kewaunee County.
The track is red clay and with all the water they dumped on the track and with how extremely humid it was, I would have guessed that the surface would be fast and tacky. Wrong on that. It was hard and slick, blowing dust in hot laps and showing black after just a few laps. It did take quite some time for the surface to clean off and thus the low groove was the place to be early. It did gradually widen out and the Modified feature saw plenty of cars run the high side of the track although I was convinced that the top side wouldn't hold for forty laps.
Here's where VanderBeek comes in. He is a low side racer, no matter where he is racing at and no matter what the track conditions are, he just likes to race the low side. And starting on the inside of row two, he was perfectly placed to win. Mike Mashl started on the pole after the local driver raised the most money going through the crowd before the event in support of Karsyn"s Krusaders and its founder Jessica Miller, who was killed in a car accident early Tuesday morning.
Mashl held tough for a couple laps but then Curt Myers passed him on the outside but VanderBeek stayed in his lane and eventually would take over the lead.
He had a comfortable advantage for most of the race until a very late yellow set up a two lap sprint to the money. He was not about to "flub up" however, and held his line to defeat Ryan Gustin and Cade Dillard. When all the excitement about the local and regional cars doing well was over, in the final running order the top four finishers were all USMTS regulars with only Benji LaCrosse being the invader to crack the top five, after he started thirteenth. Eighty laps of feature racing between the three classes entered produced a total of only two yellow flags, a testament to solid driving and the embedded idea in driver's heads that when they spin, they move or go to the pits.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night was the anemic number of Stock Cars that turned out to race. They have a large number of Stock Cars in northeastern Wisconsin and some very good ones but on this night only a dozen showed up to race. Perhaps it was the fact that this was not a point night for them, but if money only isn't a good enough reason to go racing, then I know even less about this sport than I thought I did!
However, just because they were short on cars didn't mean that they didn't produce and excellent main event. Troy Muench took the early lead but "Hot" Rod Snellenberger, one of my favorites from the first time I ever saw racing in this part of the state, started tenth and tracked down the leader without the benefit of the yellow flag, until eleven laps were complete and a spin allowed the field to bunch.
Muench was running the higher line on the track and Snellenberger went to the low side and they raced side by side for the rest of the rest, never being more than a foot or so apart. Hot Rod made one last change on the final lap, but Muench kept Rod pinned low and he couldn't quite get the momentum he desired and Muench beat him to the line by about a foot or two for the very exciting win.
The Street feature, in which their were fourteen cars, was won by Ryan Manthei. Jason Jensen, from the Northwoods of Eagle River, came from twelfth to finish second.
The crowd for this event was OK but with all the pre race hype about the event, I would have guessed that hit would have been much larger but the grandstand here is very expansive so I might be underestimating the crowd size.
With all the green flag racing, the program roared by at a very fast clip, just as he should on a week night. Not to many classes, and almost nonstop racing kept things moving. Midweek specials promoters, are you listening? I took my own sweet time getting ready for the drive home but I was still on the road by 9:45 pm. Many areas like to brag about the racing facilities that they have in their area but I would stack the top half dozen or so tracks in northeastern Wisconsin against anyone else's list from anywhere.
I did run into noted racing author and former promoter and track official Joe Verdegan in the pits and he told me that the issue in his area was not the lack of race cars but just not enough race fans to go around. That story can be repeated in many areas of the country although lack of race cars is also raising its head in many areas too.
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