The World of Outlaw Late Model Series made their annual swing through the Upper Midwest again this year with this year's tour involving three stops. The tour started on Friday night, July 15th with a visit to the River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks North Dakota. Along with the Late Models, there would also be a shootout between the Sprint Car drivers of the NOSA Series and the IRA Sprint Series, which was making its first visit to River Cities since the early 2000's. Lightning Sprints would complete the card. The three class program would carry a hefty ticket price as it was $43 to get in unless you had purchased advance tickets yet interestingly it was $40 to get into the pits. This led a number of people to buy pit passes and make a swing through the pits for the same price that it was to get into the grandstand.
The WoO always makes Grand Forks a part of their tout but the local promoters, knowing that there are just as many Sprint Car fans in town as there are Late Model fans, always make the Sprints a part of this show so as to make sure that everyone is happy and shows up. No Sprint Cars and that stubborn portion of the fan base won't show up, simply put.
This year they upped the ante by bringing in the IRA to race with the NOSA group and they are actually going to run a doubleheader with the Sprints also racing a full show again on Saturday along with some IMCA support classes.
Thirty eight Late Models signed in to race on this night, a highly satisfactory number considering the number of open motor Late Models is pretty small in this area. Fortunately for the WoO, the local WISSOTA drivers are very supportive of this race and show up in big numbers, otherwise the WoO would be very hard pressed to put on a show of any kind. The WoO Late Model travelers are now at ten with Kyle Hammer off the tour apparently permanently, and Shane Clanton returning. While Tyler Bruening is now hit and miss, he was along on this swing.
Along with a few scattered open motor drivers like Jimmy Mars and Blair Nothdurft joining in, the rest of the field was the area WISSOTA drivers. Brad Seng, who is one of the top WISSOTA drivers here and a part of the management team at River Cities, has very much to do with getting so many of the local Late Models to participate. He is widely respected by the rest of the Late Model drivers and also very much involved with the NLRA, which is the traveling arm of the local Late Models as they schedule and visit a number of area tracks throughout the year that don't normally run the Late Model class. Thirteen of the top twenty in River Cities Late Model points would be on hand Friday and eight would make the main event.
Among the Late Model entrants, a couple were of special note. Billy Moyer was on hand to drive a car for Minnesota's Don Shaw. Shaw and Moyer have connections through their common interest of spending much time in Arizona and Shaw has purchased several Late Models from Moyer over the years. With Shaw putting himself on temporary hiatus from driving, he brought in Billy to drive one of his Longhorn cars.
Also making his return to River Cities was Ricky Weiss. Weiss claimed River Cities as his home track for a number of years as he developed his Late Model career and is a multi time track champion at "The Bullring." He was a big favorite among the fans as the Canadian population is gradually returning to the race track here and while it still isn't to the level it once was when he seemed like half the fans here were from Manitoba, there were a significant number of Manitoba plates spotted in the parking lot. There were also five Canadian drivers in the field, not counting Weiss who now calls Tennessee home.
On the Sprint side of things, the turnout was also strong with thirty five Sprint Cars on hand to race. The NOSA(Northern Outlaw Sprint Ass'n) is headquartered in Grand Forks and while racing at River Cities weekly, they also travel to a number of tracks in North and South Dakota and northern Minnesota, much the same as the NLRA functions, bringing Sprint Car racing to tracks that normally don't run them and can't afford to run them weekly. Even local Late Model fans at a track that averages between twenty and thirty Late Models for their weekly shows will grudgingly tell you that Grand Forks is a Sprint Car town.
However, the biggest tip of the hat should go to the IRA(Interstates Racing Ass'n) who came to run against the NOSA crew. Operated by Steve Sinclair, the IRA is a traveling series that races at a number of tracks in Wisconsin, Illinois with occasional visits to other states. It is a long pull to Grand Forks from southern Wisconsin or Illinois yet seven of their top ten and eleven of the top fifteen in IRA points made the trip to North Dakota which is very impressive as this group is really supportive of the IRA.
So, there were solid fields of cars in both of the main classes that would be racing on Friday. The down side of the night was that with these two groups, both had to qualify and the time trials seemed to take forever. In fact the first race didn't hit the track until 8:28 pm which was totally unacceptable. Part of this was the time that it took to run the time trials and part was that they simply didn't show any urgency to get the program going with a late start for warm up and hot laps that made the whole start at a later hour than it should have been. We were also treated to four complete farming sessions over the course of the night as track management seemed intent or providing a "hammer down" track constantly. In truth while the Sprints could function OK on such a heavy surface, it really hurt the Late Model show until late in their main event when the track started to slow down and the groove widen out. Quite frankly, I was very disappointed in how they presented the program overall with the final checkered waving right at Midnight which I also found to be unacceptable, especially at a place I would expect more out of .
Time trials, four heats and two B Features would set the twenty four car field for the Late Model part of the program. Clanton would be the only driver under twelve seconds, running a 11.978 second lap. Ryan Gustin put himself behind the eight ball early, clobbering the wall in hot laps and then missing time trials. He would not qualify through either a heat or B and would have to take a provisional as he ended up chasing it all night.
Clanton would redraw the pole for the forty lapper and would lead all laps to get the win, his first since returning to the WoO Series. Early on he received pressure from Dennis Erb who had started third. Tyler Bruening and Tanner English were also in the lead pack which saw the race go the first twenty laps without a yellow Things were started heating up shortly after as the track started to dry out just a bit and some of the drivers got out of the ditch were the speed had been the best.
The second yellow, with only eleven laps left when Mike Greseth got shoved into the front stretch wall, triggered by far the best racing of the night. Mike Marlar, pretty quiet until this time, moved to the cushion and he really started to pick up the pace, knocking off car after car as he tore toward the front. Meanwhile, Erb was digging to the low side and nearly getting under Clanton on each turn.
The last few laps would see Marlar continue to charge as he got by English and Bruening and would charge after the top two. For a second it looked like he might get both on the final lap but he came up just short and with things just getting interesting, we were wishing for fifty laps , rather than forty which seemed just a bit short giveOn n that this is a small quarter mile oval.
The Sprint Car was a race of fits and spurts, with some good racing but far too many yellow flags to maintain any kind of rhythm or continuity. Jade Hastings would start on the outside pole and would lead the first twenty eight laps before he was passed with only two laps to go. Hastings was chased most of the race by Mark Dobmeier who had started seventh but quickly moved into a challenging position. He and Thomas Kennedy were the early movers but when they got up behind Hastings, they found that while they could challenge, neither could get by him for the lead.
The driver that snuck up on everyone and used the five yellows to his advantage was Austin Pierce. After starting eighth, he didn't appear in the top five until past the halfway point of the race but then he really started to move.
Following each yellow, he would pick off at least one car as he slowly but steadily moved up in the field. He got past Wade Nygaard on lap eighteen, then got Kennedy one lap later following another yellow. He then got past Dobmeier for second with eight laps to go and with another late yellow with only three laps to go, he found himself squarely behind Hastings.
On that final restart he made a strong low move in turn four, drove under Hastings and took over the lead. He pulled away over the last two laps to score the win with a combination of strong driving and fortunate circumstances.
Tonight's program had both high and low points. The Late Model feature got good at the end but before that most of the racing was hammer down and tough for passing. The Sprint feature had its moments such as right at the end but the feature was also a tedious race with so many yellows.
Track management seemed overly in the mode of providing a rocket fast track that proved tough to pass on but provided plenty of speed. I could only give the night tepid reviews as I always expect more than average at best when I come here. I should mention too that there was a very large crowd on hand, despite the forty or more bucks to get in. They do like their racing up here but they are also a knowledgeable crowd and many felt that four farming sessions was overkill. I agree.
However, thanks go out to the Outlaws for their help and also to Brad Seng who is the kind of guy you want having a say in how a race track should be run.
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