Johnny Scott Continues to Dominate USMTS

What do you do when the skies are leaking water, the forecast is bad for the rest of the day and the wife wants to go out for fish?

Simple. You jump in the car and drive five and a half hours to South Dakota. After all, that fish has friends that will be waiting on the frying pan the next time you hunger for cod but there will never ever be a race quite like the one you would miss to break bread.

While storms would continue to deluge the Minnesota and Wisconsin area and all area tracks would be rained out, there was a sliver of opportunity as things had pretty much passed the South Dakota area over night and they were expecting a sunny and hot Sunday. As it turned out, they were mostly right as it was indeed steamy, hot and windy but they forgot to mention that the South Dakota area would go under a tornado watch by late afternoon and we would end up dodging some pretty hefty storms before the night was complete, but the races would go on to completion and that is really the only important detail.

The USMTS was finishing up their last swing through South Dakota and on Sunday they would be at the Casino Speedway in Watertown, hard on the shores of Lake Kempeska for the final night of their three race tour of western Iowa and South Dakota. They had been rained out themselves on Friday in Iowa and were anxious to get a show completed too.

Casino was featuring the third annual Sandy Benson Memorial race with WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds and Street Stocks racing along with the USMTS Mods. Sandy and Earl Benson were the  promoters of Casino Speedway for over twenty years until they sold the facility a few years ago and in fact their son Troy is still the announcer at the track. Earl was also very active in the WISSOTA organization, serving as President for a number of years. He also financially supported the racing career of Jon Tesch , who many still remember as one of the top Modified drivers that toured with USMTS after getting his racing start at Casino. In fact, Tesch would make his once a year appearance again on Sunday as he still has his last GRT Modified but races it only at this event.

Sandy was killed in a car accident down in Florida while the Benson's were attending Speedweeks activities and her death rocked the South Dakota racing community. Even now, years later, the sponsors for this event just jump at the chance to be a part of it and the purse is always substantial increased due to their support. The Mods would be running for four grand to win on Sunday with the MidMods at two grand and the Street Stocks racing for fifteen hundred dollars.

Twenty two Street Stocks signed in to race along with thirty seven MidMods. The Modified car count was thirty six and quite frankly, the only reason that it wasn't in the sub twenty range where many of the recent USMTS shows have been is because there were a large number of local WISSOTA drivers that joined in on the action Sunday. They have always supported this race and on the small, high banked track that so many of them know well, they stand a much better chance of being competitive than on some big old half mile. Casino, by the way, is a tight quarter mile , high banked oval that would fit right in down in Illinois but is rather unique for this area. It is a tight one, and there is always plenty of action and fireworks.

On this Sunday, the WISSOTA cars would hang tough for much of the first half of the race but gradually they would start to fade back as the one hundred horsepower difference of the USMTS cars would eventually show up with Tyler McDonald the "best of class" as he finished eighth.

After some teeth griding long heats in the support classes and the USMTS B Feature, along with a power outage that lasted a few minutes, it was starting to get late and with "weather" bearing down on Watertown, the Modified feature was moved up to first in the running order to ensure that they would get that race completed.

A couple of drivers led their first laps of the season in the Mod main as first Travis Saurer and then Tyler Peterson held sway in the early going. Dereck Ramirez then led quite a while but eventually it was Johnny Scott who worked his way up from eighth starting spot to challenge. He and Ramirez had a nice battle for several laps before Scott pulled ahead and with the last fourteen laps run nonstop, he pulled away comfortably near the end.

As Ramirez said in his post race interview, Scott has figured out  a way to run his car through the corners without sliding or losing time while everyone else is rolling their cars through the corners and he just pulls away. Peterson, from Hickson North Dakota has a  great run to finish third and hold off a surprising Adam Kates for the spot while Terry Phillips passed a lot of cars to finish fifth.

Twenty six cars started the main which filled the track up pretty good but only seven didn't go the distance, including hometown driver Scott Ward who debuted a brand new LG2 car and was set to start in the third row but he couldn't get the car to run. The car was also a special tribute car to his son-in-law who passed away last year.

With a few sprinkles falling, officials hustled the best they could to get the other two features completed as there was plenty of money on the line in those two races also. The Street Stock feature was first up with all cars on hand starting that and it was clear, actually from the start of the first support class heat race that all the drivers had been nipping too much of Joe Duval's Spike Energy Drink as they were all wired to the maxx, driving as if this was the biggest race of all time.

The heats were plagued with yellows for spins, crashes and stalls and while this track has more contact than most, it was nothing compared to a regular night as everyone was driving in a pretty ruthless manner. Many of the highest point drivers in WISSOTA in the Street Stocks were on hand but that didn't seem to matter as they slammed and frammed with the best of them.

In fact, the race turned into a showdown between the second and third place drivers in current national points, Kyle Dykhoff and Jeff Crouse. Dykhoff led early and then Crouse passed him with a good, non questionable move.

However, after leading a number of laps with the race broken up in to short segments due to all the carnage, Dykhoff changed his line and started to reel in the leader. Crouse went into protective mode and after Dykhoff pulled up beside him and looked ready to pass, Crouse threw a real wild slider leaving turn four and knocked Dykhoff aside and retook the lead.

However, it was time to look out as Dykhoff had revenge on his mind. He was able to get within a couple of car lengths of Crouse and going into turn one with only two laps to go, Dykhoff kept the throttle wide open and pointed his car directly at Crouse. The crunch was distinct and around went Crouse, but somehow, he was able to restart with no significant damage to his car. Dykhoff, on the other end, badly damage the right front of his car after using it as a battering ram but he was going to try and restart and worm his way back up to his former position until encouraged by track officials on the Raceceiver to call it a night. Still, they didn't disqualify him like they should have and instead gave him is position and labeled him a DNF.

Crouse was able to restart and then hold off Dustan Davis and Trajan Schmidt for the win. No mention of the incident was made in the winner's interview and Crouse has two things going for him. Number one, he's a good sized guy and number two, he is a high level amateur hockey coach in the Winter and actually runs camps all summer, so what he can't control with his size, he likely can handle with his fists!

Still, it was disappointing for two drivers with so many successful shows, points and wins to be beating on each other so late in the season and with so much on the line. One hard arse tech guy and they could be jeopardizing their whole season.

The Midwest Modifieds finished up the night with a few more persistent raindrops starting to fall. Thirty seven drivers had been whittled down to the top twenty and while their feature race wasn't quite as wild as the Streets, it still had its "moments."

With nearly half the field sidelined by the checkered, Garden City South Dakota's Scott Hansen held off a late charge from "The Chief", Dan Wheeler to earn the two grand pay day.

Even as much as they tried to hustle things along, with the power problems and the many slow downs, including one medical emergency for driver Hope Swenson when she tweaked her neck following hard impact with the front stretch wall, it was almost Midnight when the final checkered fell, far too late on a Sunday night, especially with South Dakota schools starting the next day. There were probably a lot of crabby kids and Moms this morning!

The trip home was one of the most unbelievable that I had ventured out on in quite some time. For many miles, I was running parallel to a huge storm that had just missed the race track and surely would have ended the action prematurely. There was not much rain but the lightning show was unbelievable. And the wind was something else. I could barely keep my car on the road and I was dodging blowing debris constantly. Twice, toppled road signs were laying upside down in my lane and if not for dumb luck or some other unexplained factor, I would have plowed both of them over. As it turned out, I rolled into the driveway at 5:15 am, just another day in paradise.