The Corn Belt Clash Late Model series traveled to the Oshkosh Speedzone Raceway on Friday night August 25th as they wrapped up their very abbreviated season. The Speedzone specializes in Modified racing but they also have a couple of races each year for the Late Models and do also run the Sprint Cars a few times each year.
Tonight, along with the Late Models, they would be running IMCA sanctioned Modifieds plus the local Street Stocks and the Grand National class. The Modifieds would also be wrapping up their mini series, "The King of the Ring", a series of one grand to win races that have been tied in with other special events held at "The Zone" this year.
Even though Cam Granger's Corn Belt Series comes out of Iowa, the majority of the cars that would be on hand Friday are from Wisconsin, spiced up with a few Iowa cars that travel the series along with a few random open motored cars from Minnesota. In total they had a nice field of thirty five cars sign in to race. This was particularly impressive given that it was a "stand alone" event with many of the participants towing a long ways for just the one show.
I guess they feel that since its an open motor series, they are required to bore us with time trials which they held with the cars timing in two at a time. Since the transponders are hooked up to the scoreboard here, at least we could hear what the times were and since they did then two at a time, it only delayed the start of the show by fifteen minutes from the advertised time. Pretty good by comparison to most of the time trial events I see. They then roll a dice or something like that to establish the invert and on this night it turned out to be four. The feature race was then lined up straight up from the heat finishes.
Four heats and two B features set the starting field plus two provisional starters and the twenty six car starting field was set. The very first time I came here to a Late Model race, the action was good with lots of passing and side by side racing. Since then, virtually every Late Model race has seen a "rubbered up" track with everyone hugging the bottom and passing at a premium. But, being an eternal optimist, lots of other people along with myself continue to show up for these races hoping against hope that something will change. Unfortunately, Friday night was not the night that change occurred. While the other three classes were able to race all over the track and race side by side, in the Late Models they dropped the green, everyone dove to the rail, and they lined up and ran nose to tail for fifty laps essentially. Occasionally some one might try and move out a lane but they were usually met by frustration when they got "fright trained" back several spots.
I don't know what the answer is to this problem. Whether the track needs more banking or more water or whatever, but it certainly does make for disappointing racing. They do run this track extremely dry and it may be the slickest track that I see on a regular basis. Even some of the veteran Late Model drivers have a terrible time trying to make their cars turn on this track which is very much like racing on ice. The track is smooth and the speeds are very slow but for the support classes, it seems to make their racing interesting but it does nothing for the Late Models, unless you're a fan of train racing.
The heats are extremely important as track position is everything. Scott James, the veteran driver from Indiana who has been driving the Wisconsin based Dolhun XR1 Rocket started on the outside pole and got the jump on Paul Parker and he led all fifty laps. His only real issue was with the lapped cars and there were many as the leaders caught traffic before ten laps had been completed. The starter here does not use the move over flag and it is every man for themselves which is fine. James had to be very careful to not commit himself to trying to move out to pass and get caught on the outside so it was a race of "cat and mouse", raced at the speed of the back markers, not the leaders. When someone would slide out, James would jump on the opportunity and ease by the slower cars but he was very careful not to get himself caught while none of the other front running cars made the move to try and pass on the outside either.
The first thirty nine laps ran nonstop and a couple of times things got a little "dicey" for James but each time he made the right moves. The few restarts they had were done single file, in recognition of the racing conditions which was only fair. Each time James would move away slightly and put a little distance on the second place car. At the end he got very conservative so as not to slip off the bottom and runner up Billy Drake closed up on him but never provided a serious challenge.
It was a great run for the Illinois veteran and his best finish in a big race for quite some time. Also getting a nice finish was Paul Parker who after earning a good starting spot, just hung in there and maintained. Chris and Chad Simpson followed for fifty laps but couldn't do a thing about moving up. Chris would become the point champ of the Corn Belt Series following the completion of the main. Seventeen of the twenty six starters were still on the track at the finish with several dropping out once they got lapped. The race had three minor slow downs for spins and not a wrecked car in the event.
A couple on interesting notes on Friday night's Late Model field. Dan Schlieper, the former national traveling star from the Milwaukee area, returned to racing Friday night driving a back up car for Jimmy Mars. I believe this deal might have been "brokered" by Dan's brother Bill, who's engines Mars uses along with many others in the field. Dan showed little rust as he made the main but his free wheeling style and this super slippery surface did not mesh and he eventually pulled off and called it a night. A.J. Diemel, a former winner at this track, was debuting a brand new MB Customs car Friday night. However, they struggled to get it tuned to the surface and he was forced to qualify through a B feature. He did run the whole distance, probably if for no other reason than to get laps on the car and he was unofficially twelfth in the final standings.
Jim Schmidt, a local competitor, was a surprise entrant on Friday, only because he flipped his car on Thursday night during a practice session and they indicated that they likely wouldn't get it fixed by Friday. However, they were there, made the show and finished the fifty lap grind.
In terms of true racing, the three support classes provided much more in the way of racing, although two of the three proved to be big runaways for the winner. They probably had perhaps one too many support classes as the final checkered flag didn't fly until almost 11 pm when I thought they had a curfew that struck well before that time, but perhaps that no longer exists. But with great fields in the other three classes on hand (27 Grand Nationals, 21 Street Stocks and 33 Modifieds) they weren't about to not let one of these classes race as based on the size of the crowd Friday, this was a back gate financed event.
The "Speedzone" has one of the best weekly car counts of any track probably in the Midwest with one hundred twenty to thirty cars in the pits every week and their Modified fields are probably only challenged by perhaps Dacotah Speedway in Mandan North Dakota in terms of weekly numbers. Their thirty three car field Friday is just an example of the numbers they have on a weekly basis. Usually their mains are close affairs but on this night, Wausau's Marcus Yarie totally dominated the race. He came from the second row quickly to take the lead and then he ran off and hid.
Eventually Johnny "Hitman" Whitman did start to close up on him as did Benji LaCrosse but following a lap eighteen yellow, Yarie again pulled away from Whitman and LaCrosse struggled on the outside where he had been running so well previously. Yarie won easily and was crowned the "King of the Ring" for the mini series. Justin Ritchie had from eleventh to third with Mike Mashl and LaCrosse rounding out the top five. Nineteen of the twenty starters finished the race.
The Grand National class would equate to WISSOTA Super Stocks or perhaps Pro Stocks in Iowa. They run at many of the tracks in eastern Wisconsin but not really any place else. There are a ton of them around however, as Friday's show would indicate. On this night they had the option of removing the roofs and some took advantage of that while the majority didn't want to go through the "monkey work" involved for just one night .Brian Vinney led for the first part of the race but in this country the Richards name is known as the "kings of the hill" in this class and Kenny Richards came up from the fourth row to pass Vinney and then drive away for the win. Again, it was another smoothly run feature with only one yellow and all twenty starters were on the track at the finish.
The Street Stock feature saw heartbreak for leader Chase Solomon who had a healthy sized lead until his car suddenly just stopped and he pulled into the infield, done for the night. This left it up to the Crapser brothers, Adam and Alex to battle it out for the win. Adam liked the high side of the track and that worked for most of the race but Alex dropped low and was able to drive under his brother for the win. If the name sounds familiar, their Uncle Cory is one of the USMTS drivers racing their "Hunt" series right now with special logos on his car.
Once again, it was a very smooth race with only one yellow and three non finishers. Overall, the support classes were quite remarkable in both their lack of yellow flags in their mains and the small number of drivers that dropped out of their features. These classes, along with the Four cylinders and Sport Mods make up their weekly show and I could see where these classes would be highly entertaining on a weekly basis.
At least the "Speedzone" isn't under the gun like it has been for much of the Summer. Governmental agencies have been "hot" to close the race track down and turn it into a stage for concerts but after much fighting and anguish, the track promoters have fought off the county and city, at least for the short term. The county has decided it issue bids for promoters again for next year so for 2018 at least, it sounds like the track will still be there to race on. However, there is much hostility between the current promoters and the person that oversees the bid process and running the facility so it would not be surprising if another promoter gets the nod next year, that is assuming there would be others interested in promoting the facility and given the way things have been around here, that is certainly not a "given." But there can be no doubts that with the track properly prepared, this is one of the finest facilities in the state of Wisconsin and certainly beyond.
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