Friday, August 4, 2017

They Do More Than Just Raise Spuds in the Red River Valley

It was a miserable day on Thursday, August 3rd. Rain was coming down by the bucket full with heavy rain predicted to fall all day and into  the evening. The temperature was about twenty degrees below normal(if indeed there truly ever is a normal) and it seemed like a day best spent siting around the fireplace and trying to keep warm.

However, Summer is a finite thing and it is starting to come to a screeching conclusion before too darn long, so a wasted day is a lost day forever and I refused to lose the day without at least a fight.

It took some doing and some help from my friends, but I was able to actually find a race to attend and to top things off, it turned out to be a race featuring a Late Model special with thirty cars on hand representing four states and two Canadian Provinces! Not bad, I would conclude. Especially given the circumstances.

The race I ended up attending was at the Norman County Raceway in Ada Minnesota. Most of you reading this probably haven't been to NCR and probably will need a map to even find Ada! Ada is a small farm town of just under two thousand residents that is located about forty miles Northeast of Fargo North Dakota and about the same distance Southeast of Grand Forks North Dakota. In other words, it's way up there. Lying right in the heart of the agricultural rich Red River Valley of the North, farming is king here and everything revolves around agriculture. Potatoes, corn and sugar beets are the crops of choice here and by the looks of things, the harvest is going to be a big one. But don't let me kind you, I know little about farming but one thing I do know is that the farming areas around here also produce some of the finest dirt track racers in the Midwest. In fact, one of the people I spotted at the races watching Thursday was all time Late Model driver Mitch Johnson who was on hand to see some of his old friends in action.

While they had six tenth of an inch of rain overnight in Ada, by morning the sun had broken out and with a plethora of heavy equipment available to them, getting the track in racing shape was not an issue. The issue was getting there. When I left home it was still raining "pitchforks and hammer handles"  and not looking to let up any time soon. However, despite running through a few spotty showers on the way, by the time we reached the Fargo area the sun was shinning and the temperatures had gone up a good fifteen degrees.

I had been chasing racing the last few days with some very short nights thrown in as a result, so even though I probably would have attempted the five and a half hour drive along if necessary, it wasn't a very wise thing to do. Fortunately my friend Jon Birdsell was willing to wait a bit for me and I drove about halfway, parked my car at a "park and ride" on Interstate 94 and rode the rest of the way with him. This was the "game changer" for me and made the trip much more manageable.

The Norman County Raceway in located at the county fairgrounds on Ada's West side and is an old fairgrounds. The grandstand is of a design that must be several decades old as it is mostly made out of wood with narrow aisles and a low roof and lots of posts to get in the way. A well placed tornado could certainly help to improve things. The track is about a three eighth mile oval, fairly wide with some banking and of course, covered by native black dirt. It usually races very hard and slick with just enough water put on it to keep it from being dusty.

Jake Bitker is the promoter here and has been for several years now. He kind of took over operations when the former promoter decided he didn't have the time to run things and no one else stepped forward. Bitker is a former racers who gave up driving when he started to promote. He is also a big time farmer in the area and has expanded his interests in racing. He also owns Performance Auto which now has locations in Fargo, Grand Forks and Winnipeg and is tied in closely with Karl Performance in that he sells Victory chassis. When the track in Fargo looked to reopen after having sat vacant for a couple years after the Schatz' got out of the promoting business, Bitker also took over as the promoter there and is now in his second year running that track.

NCR runs an interesting assortment of race classes. While they rotate in the IMCA Hobby Stocks and Stock Cars, their primary classes are the IMCA Modifieds and Sport Mods along with the WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds. They also have a couple of specials for the NLRA Late Models and NOSA Sprints too.

So, on this night, three classes of Modifieds that all look very similar in appearance were racing along with the Late Models and the Legend cars, of which Bitker has the franchise for this entire area and the Legends cars race weekly at several tracks and have good numbers of participants also.

I would have never guessed that the Late Model count would be what it turned out to be and that such an interesting and diverse field of drivers would be assembled. The NLRA does a great job of keeping Late Model racing going in the northwestern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota area along with the southern regions of Manitoba. Some darn tough drivers like Brad Seng, Dustin Strand, Ricky Weiss and Mike Balcaen among the drivers that support this series and race weekly at their home track in Grand Forks.

Weiss has been home for awhile now after racing in the Southeast region of the country earlier this year and he is tied for the NLRA point lead with Strand. Thursday's feature race had some controversy after Weiss and Don Shaw, who has been one of the hottest drivers in the Midwest, dropped in to race this week. Weiss threw a slider on Shaw for the lead on the first lap of the main and depending on your point of view, either completed the move and then got spun by Shaw or failed to clear Shaw who couldn't check up in time and punted Weiss into the infield.

Track officials liked option one better and Weiss kept his spot while a furious Shaw nearly dislocated both elbows as he waved his arms at the flagman in frustration. Weiss would then go on to take the feature race, however he was closely chased at the end by none other than Donny Schatz, who was on a "bus man's holiday" and running Late Models as he likes to do whenever possible.

How refreshing is it for one of the sports biggest names to have a complete Late Model operation with both spec and open Late Models and then go have a "night out" by towing to tiny Ada Minnesota to race. Schatz continues to get better and better in the Late Model and was right on Weiss' tail by the end  with a few more laps likely seeing a leader change perhaps. After a relaxing night in the pits at Ada, Schatz jumps back in the "hot box" with big shows this week in Missouri and of course the Knoxville Nationals pressure cooker that starts next week.

Shaw, by the way, drove the wheels off his car after being relegated to the tail and showed why he is one of the quickest Late Models around right now. He went back to twenty fourth and drove all the way up to fifth at the finish without the benefit of a single yellow flag to help him bunch up the field! And then, heaven help the flagman who had to explain to him after the race whey the call went against him.

Special mention should go out to Travis Robertson. He flew off the track at Grand Forks on Friday night and totaled his Late Model. With rumors that he was done for the year, instead he showed up at Ada with a brand new MasterSbilt from JMR and using the drivetrain and motor out of his junked car. Painted flat black and with a number taped on it, he raced his way to a fine seventh place finish  against a quality field of cars with not even a practice lap as NCR allows no hot laps.

The Modified feature saw Michael Johnson get to the front early and then fight off a late race challenge from Tyler Peterson for the win. Johnson runs the shop at Performance Auto in Fargo for Bitker and drives a Victory chassis.

Coming out for the first time all year in a Midwest Mod, Peterson drove to an impressive win in that class as he passed Dylan Goplen for the win. Peterson has been focusing on his Modified this year but Thursday broke out his old J Car which still proved to be plenty of machine. Peterson had grown quite a name racing the MidMod with big victories in Arizona over the last couple of years.

The Sport Mod feature saw former Hobby Stock racer Jesse Skalicky drive up from the third row to pass Kelly Jacobson and then hold off Andy "Spud" Wagner(you knew there would have to be at least one potato reference in this blog) and "Spud" really is his nickname, for the win.

I didn't catch the name of the winner of the Legends feature race as quite frankly, I don't pay much attention to that class, in fact none at all. It is, however, a class that does have lots of competitors in eastern North Dakota and is very popular among some fans.

Thanks to Bitker and Scott Sailer for their help on this night although I didn't get the chance to catch up with either one. There was no time for small talk after the checkered flew as it was a long ride home as I hit the driveway at 4:15 am. Yikes.

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