Friday, June 17, 2022

A Late Race Pass Nets Whitman Ten Grand at 141

 It was quite a couple of days for the folks at 141 Speedway located between Francis Creek and Maribel Wisconsin(just South and East of Green Bay). Wednesday was supposed to be the first of two nights for the Clash At The Creek XIV for IMCA Modifieds with a top prize of ten grand to the winner along with two full shows for the IMCA Stock Cars and Sport Mods with each show scheduled to pay out a grand to the winners. 

It was incredibly hot and humid on Wednesday but even though storms were scheduled, everyone was preparing as though racing would take place. The timing of the storms continued to change and it started to look more optimistic for the evening, with Toby Kruse telling me that if he had two and a half hours, he could get the show done which would be a full show for the Stock Cars and Sport Mods plus double heat races for the Modifieds. They even moved up starting time by a half hour, trying to beat the weather. 

However, the speed of the storms picked up and instead of calling for the cars for the first heat, announcer Jerry VanSickel had to tell us all to get the hell out of town as the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department had advised shutting things down so even though it wasn't raining, the show was cancelled. It did rain shortly after but fortunately for all the campers on site, nothing too severe happened locally. However, there were several tornados in the region and enough damage was done that neighboring Outagamie Speedway in Seymour had to cancel their Friday night show due to power being out in the entire area. 

The plan, as I understood it then, would be to run one show on Thursday and split the original purse which seemed to make perfect sense to me as all armbands, tickets sold etc were rolled over to the Thursday show. However, I heard that a number of drivers, clearly not economists themselves, put up a stink about cutting the purse even though the revenue stream had been cut in half. So to appease the uproar, somehow Toby and his partners made the decision to pay the advertised purse, even though it was now a one night show.  In fact, a number of great supporters from the community stepped up, as they do quite often here and contributed cash toward the purse and along with the "One Night Stand For Ten Grand" now paying ten five to the winner, the Stock Car feature went up to $2,700 and the Sport Mods to n$1,750.  Sponsors also spread more money out throughout the purse but to what extend and the exact amount, I can not say but I can say that this area and 141 are a match made in Heaven. 

So virtually everyone of the racers returned for night two plus a few more pulled to the gates in the support classes, perhaps having been scared off by the weather on Wednesday. A late move saw Jordan Grabouski and Jacob Hobscheidt roll in from Nebraska after not having been on hand on Wednesday. The car count would be one hundred and forty five cars and that in just three classes. There were sixty four Modifieds on hand, which is not close to the record for this event but still a lot of iron. There was also thirty nine Stock Cars and forty two Sport Mods. 

The Fox River Valley area of Wisconsin is an anomaly when it comes to car counts. While most of the rest of the country is facing short fields of race cars, this area, and particularly 141 Speedway, has tons of cars for their weekly shows with several nights this year with over one hundred and seventy cars in the pits for a weekly show and I was told they are averaging nearly forty Stock Cars weekly. The other tracks in this area don't score quite that high but still have car counts well above the average for the rest of the country. While there are certainly visiting racers here from places like Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska but no Minnesota cars this year, the vast majority of the racers this week will be right from eastern Wisconsin. 

While the weather shorted out the racing action on Wednesday, it still had an affect on the Thursday show. Gale force winds from the West blew all day so getting and keeping moisture into the track was a major challenge. They did the absolute best they could and the track held up quite well considering all this plus the huge number of laps that would be put on the track during the evening. Unfortunately, the bleachers face the setting sun here at 141 and it was a night to pretend you were in the Sahara, as we all got a pretty good sandblasting before the night was over. But the good new was, we were racing. 

All three classes used a straight draw, redraw format with the Modified portion cut to just one heat race with B Features in all classes to fill the field. 141 does have a strict curfew after a run in with some area farmers in recent years, so their show must be done in a prompt manner, no matter the number of cars. The good thing is this is what they do weekly so if anyone would know how to run a speedy show, it would be these folks. 

With so many cars and so few starting spots available in the mains, you can correctly assume that the heat races were tough, cut throat events with no prisoners taken. Still, with these drivers well schooled in the one spin rule, there were only a total of five yellow flags in the fifteen qualifying heat races, which is quite amazing. 

And when the heats were done, they moved right into B Features and then the mains. A quick misting took place from time to time on the track but didn't cost more than an extra lap or two between events. This show was tear assing through.

Twenty four Stock Cars would go thirty laps for their main event and the early leader was Dusty Loberger for three laps until he was passed by Chase Parker. Moving in to challenge him was Luke Lemmens and while Parker hugged the low line, Lemmens tried lap after lap to edge past him on the high side. This continued through the first half of the race with Mike Mullen and Benji LaCrosse also starting to be a part of the challengers. 

Just pass halfway, Lemmens started to edge up closer and they would cross the line side by side. On lap nineteen, Lemmens would get the lead by .052 seconds and that was key, as the first yellow flew a lap later and Lemmens would have the point on the Delaware restart. 

Mullen would then move to the outside to challenge while at the same time, LaCrosse was on the move. A second yellow would bunch the field one more time and this would give LaCrosse his chance. He would drive past Lemmens to take over the lead on lap twenty six and then drive away from the field over the last four laps. He would have the biggest margin of the night as he took the chekcered and would take the win over Parker and Lemmens. 

The Sport Mod feature would have two different leaders and only a single yellow over its twenty lap distance. Tim Sheppard would grab the initial lead but was soon challenged by Cole Czarneski for the top spot along with Bruce Belland. 

On lap eight, Czarneski would take over the lead following the only yellow when Zach Rabb put the field under the red actually when he had a pretty substantial engine fire. Czarneski would grab the lead after racing resumed and with no yellows, he would build up a full straightaway over the field. 

Bad luck struck him however, with only three laps to go when he got a flat left rear tire and lost speed. As he slowed, Sheppard didn't realize that he was exiting the track and nearly ran up his back before turning to the right and taking the lead back. Despite being shocked by the changing events, Sheppard would drive on for the win with a scrambled jockeying finish that saw Tim Warner finish as the runner up ahead of Jacob Zellner.

The Modified main would be fifty laps of green flag racing. Modified turned Late Model and now back to the Modifieds driving for the Czarneski team, Jared Siefert would take the early lead. Just as in the Stock Car feature, Mike Mullen would move into second and as Siefert hugged the low groove, Mullen would work higher on the track and try to build momentum and make a pass. He attempted  this multiple times and while he could get close, Siefert continued to hit his marks and hold on to the lead. 

It was basically a two car battle during the first half of the feature but smoothly and surely, Johnny Whitman was working his way to the front after starting twelfth on the grid. By the halfway point he was third as he passed Cody Laney and Wyatt Block to get up to that spot. 

Both Whitman and Mullen continued to work on Siefert who continued to hold on but his lead was tenuous. The big moment came following a yellow on lap thirty eight for a spin. Siefert would block low on the green, wanting to keep Mullen behind him. This opened up the top side to Whitman who got a great run on the green and shot past Siefert, beat him to turn one and then ducked back to the bottom and pulled away in the last few laps. 

If I was the Race Director, I believe I would have called Whitman for a jump on that last restart as he has a pretty big swing at Siefert before they took the green but none was called by those who matter, and Whitman would pull away in the final few laps to take the win over Siefert and Mullen. For Whitman, it was a repeat win for him in this event. 

A very good crowd was on hand for this show and here is the most amazing stat of the night. The first green flag flew at 6:33 pm and the final checkered waved exactly at 10 pm. That means that twenty seven races and three hundred and fifty four laps of green flag racing action took place in three and a half hours! Now folks, tell me why your weekly program with seventy or eighty cars can't get done in the same length of time!

Thanks to the management of 141 Speedway this week. They made the best of a tough situation and were more than fair to both the competitors and fans and perhaps that is why there are so many of them here every week. 

 


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