Mod Wars Interupted by Sky Wars

The third annual USMTS Mod Wars; the USMTS vs. WISSOTA, kicked off on Thursday night, July 13th at the Ogilvie Raceway near Ogilvie Minnesota. About an hour North of the Twin Cities, the "Big O" is a three eighth mile wide and banked track owned by the Wagamon Family with Nate Fischer in charge as promoter. 

Running WISSOTA classes, six in all on Saturday nights, the track also hosts a number of special events including WoO Late Models and for the first time this year Sprint Cars, along with a couple of special events promoted by FYE Motorsports. Just next Monday, in fact, they will be the opening round of Northern Thunder, a five straight night series of WISSOTA Late Models at tracks in Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

So they know the drill when it comes to special events and always have things in order and set to go when traveling series roll into town. This event is an interesting one in that for the only time all year, Todd Staley and USMTS allow another series to run their own rules when it comes to the Modifieds. Normally, when one enters a USMTS event, they must be legal for the series to race. But on this weekend, "The Mod Wars", they allow the WISSOTA cars to run as long as they are legal for WISSOTA but no mixing and matching of rules is allowed. 

This always creates some discussion as to which group has the upper hand. The tires are different with USMTS running their American Racers while the WISSOTA crew has a contract with Hoosier. Some say that four short runs the Hoosiers are superior while long green flag stretches favor the American Racers but who can say for certainty?

For sure that that motor rules favor the USMTS crew as most would agree they are packing an extra hundred horses over the spec engined rules of WISSOTA. So the WISSOTA crew hopes for a slick track to neutralize the horsepower advantage the USMTS crew wants a lot of long, green flag racing. 

Both groups have plenty of star power and while I admit to being slightly biased, I feel the WISSOTA drivers can wheel with anyone in the country if put on an equal basis. 

The Modified field would number forty four for the opening night of three complete shows to be run here this weekend. The quickest driver in time trials overall was Will Krup, the only driver to crack the seventeen second barrier as he went 16.826 seconds. Five heats and a pair of B Features would set the field for the main event. The WISSOTA group had a good start to the evening when three of the five heats were won by WISSOTA cars with Ryan Gierke, Brandon Dolman and Eric Lamb winning heats with Jake Timm and Tyler Wolff winning the other two. Jim Chisholm, Jason Hughes and Rodney Sanders surprised as none ran particularly well in their heats on a track that was quite heavy by Ogilvie standards. 

Also on the card were four other WISSOTA sanctioned divisions including Midwest Mods, Street Stocks, Mod Fours and Hornets. I'm told that the Streets were added when a couple of big sponsors agreed to pay their entire purse so their kids could race this weekend. All had decent numbers of entrants with the MidMods topping the list with forty one of them signed in with one one hundred and thirty nine total entrants. 

The one thing that no one could control was the weather and after a beautiful day, the storm clouds came roaring in rapidly after dark. The show started right on the dot at it's advertised time and because of that and very few yellows in the heats. all the heats except the last MidMod heat and the Hornet heat were completed. 

However, at that time it started to rain and while it never rained super hard at the track, the lightning was fierce and the grandstand was evacuated. Eventually the rain passed and track officials made an attempt to reclaim the track but the surface was just too wet and it was far too humid for any drying to take place. The decision was made to pick up the program right where they had left off, start a couple of hours earlier and then when Thursday night's show is done, move right into the Friday night show. 

For the fans this would be the best choice and it would allow the drivers to collect three checks for the weekend, rather than waste Thursday night. Ticket prices have been adjusted based on the changes. Friday night will now feature a considerable amount of racing with five classes set to complete one program and then move into another . Some new cars are also expected to arrive for the Friday night show, further swelling the pit area. Race time is 5 pm.