The Clash at the Creek concluded on Wednesday night, June 11th at the 141 Speedway near Francis Creek Wisconsin. After Tuesday night's preliminaries, Wednesday night's main event for the IMCA Modifieds would see the winner head home with an extra ten grand in their pockets as the seventeenth edition of this race would conclude.
The IMCA Stock Cars and Sport Mods ran a second full program totally unrelated to the Tuesday night show with the winner in each division earning a thousand dollars for their efforts.
After Tuesday night's show was a very smooth event with little in the way of big crashes, just about everyone returned for the Wednesday event. Only two of the sixty three Modifieds in the pits failed to race on Wednesday night in Last Chance events, trying to make the twenty four car field for the fifty lap main event.
Meanwhile, the Sport Mod and Stock Car fields both grew with forty three Sport Mods and forty one Stock Cars on hand to race their full show in each class. Seventeen drivers signed in on Wednesday that weren't on hand for the Tuesday night show and a total of ninety two drivers between the two classes raced one or both of the mid week shows.
There once again were no hot laps and the first green flag of the night would fly one minute ahead of the advertised starting time. What had been a nice day saw the forecast start to go downhill as there was a prediction of rain by 10 pm so both the track curfew and potential weather led to a sense of urgency to get the program moving.
The ten from Tuesday night's events were already locked into the main event so a series of heat races, based on Tuesday night's results would qualify a few more drivers. One more chance was given with a Last Chance race that would add the final four, with twenty four drivers starting the main event.
I wish I could honestly say that the fifty lap Modified feature was a dandy and spell binding from start to finish but my laptop would not allow that and would probably burst into flames if I lied like that to it, even though it is just a machine.
The biggest problem was with the weather. Track officials chose to run the same order of events as they did on Tuesday, which meant that the Modified feature would be last. Earlier I checked with some "in the know" folks that assured me that the Mod feature wouldn't rubber up, as they would redo the track if necessary right before their race.
Unfortunately, the radar screens on everyone's phones said otherwise. I was obvious to the situation but was somewhat surprised when at the conclusion of the Stock Car feature, they moved right into the Modified main. But that was the deal. the radar looked bad and they wanted to get the Mod feature done, so they were left with the difficult choice of starting that event with a track that had already shown signs of rubber as the Stock Cars concluded. It was a difficult choice but you can imagine how the crowd would have reacted if they took time to redo the track and then it rained before they could drop the green flag.
However, the choice they went with ended up producing what was at best a less than memorable fifty laps of Modified racing. Cole Czarneski got the jump and led the opening lap but there would be no stopping Ethan Braaksma who started on the outside of row one. He got up to speed, blew by Czarneski on the high side of the track and disappeared into the Wisconsin evening.
As he opened up a large lead, there was some jockeying going on behind him as drivers quickly realized that the top line was gone and that they had been get in the rubber quickly or be shuffled off to Buffalo. Some passing was done as when a driver slipped out of the groove, there was always someone ready to fill that spot and move then back in the running order. Johnny Whitman was as successful as anyone, as he worked his way past Czarneski and took over the second spot by the halfway point of the race.
Braaksma was untouchable as he continued to pull away from everyone. Things did get dicey a couple of times though, as when he caught the back of the pack and the slower cars, it became very hard to get past them. Many of the drivers, when the leaders caught them, were pulling out of line and heading for the infield, thus saving their cars and tires and not causing issues for the faster cars, who were having a devil of a time getting past them, particularly if they were in the rubber line also.
But a couple times Braaksma got hung up pretty good but he showed great patience, waiting for the slower cars to shuffle themselves around and not falling into the trap of trying to pass them on the outside, which several front runners did and then found themselves stuck on the outside with no way to get back into line.
The biggest tie up occurred with thirty three laps completed and triggered the only yellow of the night. At this point, Braaksma's lead was small, largely because he was behind a group of slower drivers running nose to tail and suddenly, the top five were lined up nose to tail also. When one slower car tried to slow up and dive into the infield. second place driver Whitman tried to go inside him and ended up sliding into the infield, triggering the yellow.
He was rightfully restored to second and the race continued, With an open track, Braaksma again took off at a torrid pace, leaving the challengers far behind. Whitman, however, perhaps wrecked a right rear tire as suddenly he couldn't get off the corners and he began to drop like a rock as contender after contender passed him with Johnny dropping all the way back to eighth.
The biggest mover was Jordan Grabouski who took advantage of the opportunities to move into second but with an open track during the last twenty or so laps, be couldn't mount any charge on Braaksma who was simply the fastest car on this night.
The local drivers, who pride themselves on their competitiveness, took an ass kicking on Wednesday as behind Grabouski in second, it was Cody Laney, Tom Berry Jr and Tripp Gaylord completing the top five with the first local driver being Benji Lacrosse in sixth. Fourteen drivers completed the contest with just one driver a lap down.
Just as the race was wrapping up, the sprinkles started to fall and they quickly hustled up to get the Non Qualifiers feature on the track, a race won by Chaz Baca Jr. However, it never really rained much after that and in retrospect, they actually might have had time to do a bit of track prep and get away with it, but they had no idea just that that nasty looking radar would produce or not. It's always easy to second guess after the fact.
Mike Mullen didn't have a Modified to race this week, but he did have a Stock Car and he dominated the Wednesday feature in that division, taking the lead from the pole and running away from the field. This race ran off twenty nonstop laps and by the end of it, he was a full straightaway ahead of the pack.
The rubber started to lay down even during this race and that helped produce a wild scramble for the second spot. Shawn Kilgore had started on the pole and settled into second as he guarded the low side and while there were other cars quicker than his, they weren't able to pass him on the outside. This produced a mad scramble as drivers jockeyed for position, banging and clattering off each other as they looked for holes to make passes and get to the inside lane.
Kilgore managed to hold all of them off for second with Kyle Frederick taking third ahead of Eric Mahlik and last night's winner Luke Lemmens.
The Sport Mod feature produced the most action as the leaders engaged in a battle of slide jobs in the late going for the win. Brady Harshbarger took the initial lead but Dylan Schmidt, who wasn't in the field on Tuesday, moved into second and made it a close battle for the lead.
The yellow waved three times in the first six laps and spins and one hard collision slowed the action. Cory Kemkes, also not on hand last night, moved in to make it a three car battle for the lead. Harshbarger continued to hold the top spot though with Schmidt, Kemkes and Cam Reimes moving into the top five.
Schmidt found some speed up one lane on the track and on lap thirteen, he drove into the lead. Harshbarger wasn't ready to yield though, and he drove exceedingly hard into the corners, trying to get back under Schmidt for the lead.
Harshbarger put it very deep into turn one and the leaders slammed together hard, but both were able to maintain control and continue their battle. On the next lap, Harshbarger again threw a wicked slider in turn one, but Schmidt saw him coming and crossed him over with Harshbarger sliding very high and while he was able to maintain second, he lost enough ground that he was unable to mount a challenge in the few laps left to run.
Schmidt and Harshbarger were chased across the finish line by Kemkes, Coy Vlies, who came from sixteenth and Reimers.
Drivers from eleven different states were on hand racing here this week and the 50/50 drawing on Wednesday paid out $1337 to one lucky fan.
Thanks go out to track owner Tim Czarneski and all the great employees that he has who run the show and of course Toby Kruse for his help. Many more special events are upcoming at 141 this year including two day specials for both the Sport Mods and Stock Cars later this Summer. Check their website for full details. After I left the track, by the way, I never hit another drop of rain all the way home.
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