The World of Outlaws Late Model Series is back again in the Midwest for another round of events after having taken about ten days off to recover from their last swing through North Dakota, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
This swing began with a Monday night show on July 29th at the Plymouth Dirt Track in eastern Wisconsin. Plymouth is about fifty miles or so North of Milwaukee and just a few miles West of Lake Michigan. It is farm county with some of the states nicest dairy farms located among the scenic rolling hills of glacial drift in the state and despite a late state to the agricultural season, things look nice and green and that corn that was planted is taller than I am as we move closer to the month of August.
The Plymouth Dirt Track runs a regularly scheduled Saturday night program and is one of the few around that runs both 360 Sprint Cars and Late Models weekly. They also run Grand Nationals and Sport Mods on a weekly basis.
Like most of the eastern Wisconsin County Fairgrounds, this one is very nice and kept as neat as a pin. A large covered grandstand sits on the West side of the track with many concession and out buildings scattered around the grounds also. The parking lot is an neatly trimmed as a golf course with many of the access roads paved. The race track itself is somewhere between a quarter and third mile in length with wide corners but not a large amount of banking. Most of the racing(sadly) is done right on the tires with the high side lane being particularly poor to race on this night. Frankly, it looked like the track just could have used a bit more water on it as it turned dry and slick quickly. There was some dust on Monday but a strong West wind kept that from bothering us in the stands which do sit quite a ways back from the track itself with the remnants of the old half mile front chute in between the grandstand and the track. This is used to stage the race cars and they roll on to the track just beyond the flagman so they come right in front of the crowd for every event, which is kind of different and also kind of neat.
This is Sprint Car county with the weekly Late Models being an after thought to the Sprint Cars and until the WoO series started visiting here in the past couple of years, all the special events here involved the Sprint Cars with the IRA and All Stars most prominently featured.
In fact, this race was promoted by IRA head Steve Sinclair along with Bob Cullen, who owns the Brian Shirley Late Model team and is headquartered just down the road from Plymouth.
For this race, the WoO partnered with the Dirt Kings Late Model group, a group that is gaining traction in eastern Wisconsin as a traveling series that visits tracks once a year or so, some that run Late Models and some that don't and instead just feature the class for a special or two. They have a loyal following of drivers that support them well, since with only two Late Model tracks in eastern Wisconsin(and both racing the same night by the way!), if Late Model racing is to survive on the eastern shore than they must support the races in this series, which provide them their biggest checks and best chance of survival.
Thirty three Late Models signed in to race with the WoO bringing their ten top in points, the rest coming from eastern Wisconsin plus a few stragglers from other areas that showed also. The biggest surprise was the addition of Donny Schatz who dropped in to race on Monday and was pitted right next to Sheppard and Mark Richards as they attempt to get his Late Model program running better. Sheppard was quickest overall in tt, but redrew the second row of the feature so there would be a show for at least a bit.
Twenty four cars would start the Late Model feature with Blake Spencer taking his one hundred and tenth provisional of the year so far(I'm exaggerating slightly) along with Paul Parker to start the race. Things got off to a shaky start when Tyler Bruening lost a wheel while the cars warmed up as an ex-crew member(just guessing) apparently forgot to tighten the lug nuts before they dropped the car off the jack. By the time Bruening got on the track, he was six laps down and a third starting position.was badly wasted.
The track had been a "one laner" all night and was expected to be so for the feature. The only time I ever saw the outside line used much here was the year that they first had the Late Models here and they watered the track like they would for a Sprint Car show. The berm was huge that night and brutal on the cars but the racing was also spectacular.
Sheppard started on the outside of row two and after they packed the cushion before the main started, it held together long enough for Brandon to decisively make a move to the outside and in two laps he passed the front row cars and took over the lead. When Ricky Weiss nearly caught back up to him as he continued on the outside, Sheppard quickly made the move back to the bottom to block any advances.
From that point, the only real racing was when the leaders got to lapped traffic. Those cars were running the same line and the decision was whether to follow them or make a bold move to try and go around them. Sheppard did some experimenting with both theories and when he did try to go around a couple of the lapped cars, he very nearly got caught up top as Chase Junghans nearly got past him and in fact, was scored the leader for a single lap.
Sheppard made his most impressive drive of the night at this point as he really got up on the wheel, found enough traction on the high side to pull even and then edge past Junghans once again. Then, the lapped traffic played in his favor as he got his nose past one of the slower cars who reacted to seeing him by moving down the track and effectively blocking the run of Junghans and Weiss to pass him.
From that point, it was just a matter of not messing up, hitting his marks and not giving up the bottom lane for any reason. A multitude of late race yellows for minor spins kept the field bunched and allowed Brandon to not have to deal with any more lapped traffic plus the attrition rate was high, with less than half the starting field still on the track at the end and that also helped. Junghans and Weiss finished behind Sheppard and were the only two that were even minor factors in the race.
It was a good decision and a nice Monday night thought to run the Late Model feature as the first main and about half the crowd took advantage of that to "bail" at this point and head for home.
The Grand Nationals and Sport Mods still had their mains to go and they did not impress those that stayed much on this night anyway. The Grand Nationals are a unique class to this area of Wisconsin and while there are quite a number of eastern Wisconsin tracks that run this division, I haven't seen them race anywhere else. They look sort of like asphalt Late Models with small spoilers and rather stock appearing bodies and run limited motors and nine inch tires I believe.
On this night they should have been equipped with strong front bumpers too as most of the racers used them a lot in what turned out to be a most unsatisfying main event with most of the front runners either eliminated by spinning or crashing each other out in a five yellow flag demo derby. One wonders if this is how they normally race or if this night was just an aberration. Other way, the "rules of order" were seldom followed and driver after driver took turns "boggering out" their rivals. Luke Scholten, who started thirteenth on the grid, raced his own race and gradually worked his way to the front as car after car disappeared to either the pits or to the back of the pack after another "bogger fest" and he found himself in the lead, which he held to the conclusion of the event.
The Sport Mods did slightly better with only three yellow flags in their main event and a big field of twenty two cars starting the finale. The Sport Mods are not sanctioned by anyone here with some of the cars baring IMCA stickers from other eastern Wisconsin tracks that are sanctioned and some running "outlaw". Cory Klemkes, who was making his first start of the year here and who races at another Saturday night track, started on the pole and he led the entire race, jumping away from the field on each green flag and never being really challenged. Track point leader Tim Warner finished second.
It was a wise decision to run the Late Models first as by the time the two support classes got done hammering on each other, it was closer to 11 pm than any would have liked on a Monday night. The spectators that wanted to go see the Late Model cars and drivers however, were much the losers too as most of the big rigs had already loaded up and were out the gate before they were even allowed to go to the pits but that whole discussion is for another time. The crowd was a good one in the large grandstand at Plymouth and I see no reason why the WoO would not return again as it fits nicely into their Wisconsin swing this week. It was also announced early in the program that the grandstand was a "smoke free" facility, one of the few in this state unfortunately.
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