Thursday night, July7th was the opening night for the forty second annual Gopher State 50, once again held at the Deer Creek Speedway near Spring Valley Minnesota. This race has a long and rich history in the scheme of Minnesota Late Model racing and has long been the biggest event on the Late Model calendar for racers and fans in the Gopher State.
With this being the forty second year for this race, its history dates back to the Chateau Speedway in Lansing Minnesota where it was held for the first few years until it outgrew that facility and was moved to the big half mile at the Steele County Fairgrounds in Owatonna where he ran for many years.
Originally conceived as a fund raiser for the Blooming Prairie Minnesota Jaycees, this race took on a life of its own once it was started and many of the biggest names have raced in this event. It was a Summer Nationals event for many years and also ran as an open competition race for years. Jerry Ingvalson was the main driver for the event and it was good to see Jerry still busy this year with the race as he roared from driver to driver on his golf cart. Eventually the city of Owatonna and the Gopher State 50 started to buck heads and when it was clear that the city no longer wanted the event, a new site for it was found at Deer Creek and they have hosted it ever since.
This year the Gopher State 50 was expanded to a three night event, the first time in its history that the event has run for more than one night. The first two nights will be preliminary nights for the Lucas Oil Late Model Series, the first time that Lucas has sanctioned this event. This year would also see by far the highest purse for this event as Deer Creek Speedway joins the list of tracks paying fifty thousand dollars to the winner of the Saturday night finale. Deer Creek has hosted many high profile races over its history, most involving the Modifieds, but this race would be the highest paying in their history.
James Essex, announcer for Lucas, reported that this night's car count of forty one Late Models was the highest for the event since 2009 and for Deer Creek since they started hosting this event in 2005. MLRA has been designated as the co-sanctioned series for this event, primarily I would say just to make sure that the car count was where they wanted it to be. Forty one cars is not a huge field but the quality of equipment is first class and Essex reported that the top three drivers in the ratings right now were all on hand.
Along with the Late Models, the USRA Modifieds would be competing in three full programs also, a strong supported class for sure. Deer Creek has long been a Modified strong hold so they always have a strong field of Modifieds here whenever they race.
The format for this night would be the standard one for Lucas with qualifying proceeding heats races, B Features and the main event. The Modifieds, on the other hand, would draw for position and use passing points to set the running order for their B Features and main event.
As a preliminary event to Saturday, the Late Model drivers were more worried about harvesting points on this night that would determine starting positions in the qualifying events for Saturday night than the cash that was being offered. Thursday night's feature would pay five grand to win but would also only be twenty five laps in length. This felt more like a trophy dash than a feature race and for the fans who paid thirty five bucks to get in, I feel like they should have gotten just a bit more for their dollar.
The race itself was pretty pedestrian for most of the race with pole sitter Brandon Sheppard leading Jonathan Davenport. However, the last six laps saw all Hell break lose and the fans got their monies' worth in those final few laps. Davenport and Sheppard engaged in a series of wild slide jobs on a track that was prepped to encourage just that kind of move. While they were going at each other, Chris Madden snuck up on them using the low side of the track and before you knew it, he had driven by both of them. Sheppard made one last attempt to regain the lead but Madden moved up the track for the only time on the race and effectively blocked Sheppard's run. All this late action had the fans going wild and that is what they will remember going into Friday night's show.
The Modified feature saw Jake Timm dominate as he moved from third to the lead before one lap was completed and he would then lead the rest of the way. This race was a slow one with seven yellow flags for assorted spins and collisions in the first five laps, after which they ran off twenty nonstop.
Early challengers Brandon Davis and Brad Dierks both dropped out with mechanical issues and it was left to Rodney Sanders to challenge Timm. Rodney would close up late in the contest but Timm gave up the cushion and dropped to the low groove just in time and this effectively took away any chance Rodney had as Timm negotiated lapped traffic near the end and drove on for the win.
A large crowd, although not a full house, was on hand for the opening night. However, there were a large number of marked off as sold reserved seats that were not being used on Thursday and as long as they had been sold, management was not worried whether or not they were actually being used. That just means that more folks will be on hand for the Friday and Saturday rounds.
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