On Friday, July 13th, I was at the River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks North Dakota. On tap for Friday was an appearance of the World of Outlaws Late Model series along with the NOSA 410 Sprints and the WISSOTA Modifieds.
The World of Outlaws Series is a staple at this eastern North Dakota track with both the Late Models and Sprints making yearly appearances at this super high banked, quarter mile oval that is known as "The Bull Ring." And for good reason. Nearly as wide as it is long, three wide racing is the norm here while the cars are turning sub twelve second laps. The action is nonstop and and with seating for over eight thousand people, it is a huge attraction in the Grand Forks area with commercial and corporate sponsorship being very high. All classes of cars put on a good show here and with just the three divisions in action, there was something for everyone on Friday. The Sprint Car and Late Model fans are nearly split right down the middle here and even if a special is offered for one class of car, the management here makes sure that the other top class in always in action. It makes it a more pricey show for management but they know that while some in the crowd are cheering for Ricky Weiss, Dustin Strand, Rick Eckert etc, they also know that the Mark Dobmeier, Wade Nygaard and Thomas Kennedy fans wouldn't likely be there just to watch the Late Models race.
The WoO stumbled into Grand Forks on a "wing and a prayer", fresh off their embarrassing performance in Rapid City South Dakota where they were able to muster only fifteen cars for a race on the big half mile there. The Outlaws are loosing cars and in this area, where spec motor racing is king and open motored Late Models are as scarce as Hen's Teeth, when they only bring ten cars with them they are at the mercy of the locals, whether they opt to race or sit and watch, knowing that they are severely out powered.
Fortunately for the Outlaws, Grand Forks is the home of Late Model driver Brad Seng, who is as proud of his home town speedway as he is of his driving accomplishments in the Late Models. He would not want to see a race at his home town track turn into a "turd" and the fans be upset, management upset and the possibility that the Outlaws would no longer be welcome in Forks if the race was a big stinker.
So he got on the phone with WoO Race Director Matt Curl and told him just what might happen if the Outlaws didn't loosen up some of their rules for one night so he could convince his local driving friends to take to the track. Curl huddled with management of World Racing Group and agreed that it was important that they have a full field of cars and agreed that as long as the WISSOTA cars were teched as per normal, they would be legal to compete, knowing that a spec engined car is not going to win the race under any circumstances.
So, when everyone had signed in to race, there were twenty three cars on hand, enough to put on a good show with three full heats plus a fifty lap main. And of those twenty three cars, twelve were WISSOTA based cars from the local area. Minus them, it would have been a sorry field of cars trying to entertain the fans. Two of the WISSOTA drivers, Ricky Weiss and Dustin Strand, did have open motors in their cars but the rest were running their spec engines and there were even a couple of 525 crate motors that now run with WISSOTA too. There were several drivers playing the waiting game, seeing how many cars signed in and when the number was less than twenty four, they unloaded and raced. So, the fans were happy and they turned out in big numbers, despite a sizzling hot Friday night in America's heartland where you could almost hear the potatoes growing under the soil.
Local fans were hoping for the upset and truly, if Ricky Weiss would have won it wouldn't have been an upset at all. He has shown how fast he is this year and except for his home track in Winnipeg, he probably has more laps on this track than any other. he won his heat and redrew the pole and the many visitors from North of the border, who are regulars here weekly, were in a tizzy.
However, there was no stopping Mike Marlar right now and he is on a roll. After trailing Weiss for the first twenty laps, he made a move in turn one to get under the Canadian and once in the lead, he wasn't challenged after that. There was, however, a very good battle for second through fifth that got very intense. If there was anyone driving harder that Marlar, it had to have been Devin Moran. He started slowly, slumped back but then got going and moved up nicely.
In a battle for position, he got "doored" by Shane Clanton and lost several positions but that just seemed to make him even madder, and he came tearing back up through the field on a mission. With a wild slide job on Weiss on the last corner of the race that had the crowd on their feet, he took the final podium spot. As you might expect, the top eleven positions went to open motored cars with the top spec car being Robert Bladow in twelfth. Ryan Corbett, with his crate however, was running about eighth midrace when he pulled off with problems under the yellow. There were only three yellows in the fifty lapper, all for minor issues and nearly as many cars in the pits at the finish as on the track, due to the many that pulled off after they went a lap down.
The NOSA Sprints were also on the card. This club fields Sprints that run every week at Grand Forks as well as traveling to other tracks in Minnesota and North Dakota. They always have solid support and seem to be sported more cars than ever this year. They have been near thirty on a couple of occasions for Forks races and on this night they had twenty one cars on hand.
No qualifying for this group as they drew numbers for their heats and then redrew a number to establish the starting order for their main. The draw did not work out well for the fans on this night as with the invert based on point standings, It put Mark Dobmeier on the second row of the feature race. While Wade Nygaard is no slouch, he couldn't keep Dobmeier behind him on this night and once Mark was in front, he was gone.
A full field of Sprints on the Forks track is always a spectacle and to watch the leaders work through lapped traffic is spectacular. Dobmeier was on a roll and didn't receive any challenges throughout the quick twenty five lapper. Thomas Kennedy eventually moved into second but he couldn't catch Dobmeier either.
The third class was the WISSOTA Modifieds. Modifieds aren't a part of the weekly program at Forks as they run WISSOTA Streets and Midwest Mods weekly in their trim four class program. But they occasionally bring in the Modifieds as well as offering them two nights of racing during the John Seitz race in September.
Nearly half the field of Modifieds(there were twenty two) were cars from the Winnipeg area. Most people don't realize how well this track is supported by Canadian drivers and fans who drive down to Grand Forks on a weekly basis. Other Modifieds were from across the border in Northwestern Minnesota as there aren't too many local drivers in this class, simply because they have never raced them weekly here.
Again, the redraw didn't work out too well for the fans as Dustin Strand redrew the outside pole, the absolute best place he could possibly be. While Strand is well known for his Late Model accomplishments, he was, and remains, a very tough Modified driver. He ran away with the main, not being challenged at any point, even though he was pursued by Ward Imrie, the defending national champion.
With twenty two cars on the track, the Modified drivers did an extraordinary job, especially given that many don't get too many laps on this track. The main went nonstop and only two cars didn't go te distance. Cudos to Dale Kraling, who slapped a big spoiler on his crate engine IMCA car and came from twelfth to finish third.
Despite the intense heat, the track remained racy all night with no evidence of it locking down for any of the features. The drivers were able to race all over the track with little dust and even the beating of three wide tired classes didn't wreck the track.
The final checkered waved at 10:30 pm on what was another solid night of racing at one of the central region's best dirt tracks.
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