On Thursday night, September 26th, the tenth annual Creek Classic at the 141 Speedway near Maribel Wisconsin kicked off. A three night race extravaganza, night number one consisted of the final point round of the Dirt Kings Late Model Tour along with a couple of specialty events for two other classes and a lot of practice by virtually everything that had four wheels, tires and a motor. The Creek Classic will kick off in earnest on Friday night with a full show for six divisions of race cars that race weekly at "The Creek" and then will come right back with another full show on Saturday night.
Ever since the Dirt Kings Tour has been in existence, which is three years now, promoter Toby Kruse has allowed them to wrap up their season as a part of the Creek Classic with a full show for their Late Models on Thursday night. At first it seemed a risk, both whether or not there would be enough fans in the stands to pay for a Thursday night show and also whether or not there would be enough drivers that could get there on a worknight put guarantee a decent show. Well, both worries proved to be unfounded and the race has been a staple of the Creek Classic now for three years.
The drivers of the Dirt Kings support their series well and they have the benefit that a lot of the drivers live in a fairly tight circle around the Fox River Valley so it isn't too hard for any of them to get to a race in this region. Thursday night they signed in twenty four cars, perfect for a format of three heats and feature race. With seventeen of their top twenty in yearly points on hand, just about everyone who races regularly with them this year was in the house.
Nick Anvelink would be going for his third straight Dirt Kings Tour point title on Thursday, having won the title both of the last two years and once again, he was leading the points this year by twenty four over Brett Swedberg going into the finale.
Things looked pretty comfortable for him, that is until the racing started. Nick tried to go to the high side in the first corner of his heat, only to find one of his competitors more than willing to "wall" him when he tried to get by. Anvelink suffered some body damage to his car with the contact which also saw him fall to the back of the heat. With passing points setting the field for the main, he would start deep in the field. His only salvation was that Swedberg also had a rough heat race and would start only two rows in front of him in the main.
The feature race itself started all twenty four cars on hand which makes for a considerable traffic jam on this tight, kidney bean shaped quarter mile track that is very uniquely shaped and a "one of a kind" track. Troy Springborn was the early leader with rookie Kyle Raddant in close pursuit. Taylor Scheffler went to the high side of the track which didn't look like a fast way around to me, given that it so much farther and it looked pretty "dirty" up there but he made it work spectacularly. He blasted by the leaders and took over the top spot. Later, Mark Rose would jam his way into second and try to track down Scheffler but the last twenty three laps of the race ran off nonstop and Scheffler was spectacular in traffic, of which there was a considerable amount.
He was able to navigate his way both high and low on the track and at the finish there were nine cars that were a lap or more down to his frantic pace, In fact, early leader Springborn was just about to be lapped when the checkered flew. Justin Schmidt, Mitch McGrath and Justin Ritchie would round out the top five in the race.
As for Anvelink, he would drive a very conservative race, hugging the low side for thirty laps when I have normally seen him get out and bang the walls. He appeared to be racing so as to keep Swedberg in sight the whole contest and near the end he was able to pass Brett for a position as Swedberg was not having the best of nights either. At the finish, Anvelink was eighth, three spots ahead of Swedberg and the winner of his third straight Dirt Kings championship, taking back the title to the small town of Bonduel. Anvelink has been sponsored for years by Seubert Calf Ranches and supplied with Rocket chassis and transporters, as was his father Terry before him. The Late Model action was fitted in as a part of the evening long practice sessions with all Late Model racing done by 9 pm.
Last year the Modifieds ran a complete program also on this night and while the schedule was somewhat unclear proceeding the program, that was what I was counting on also this night. WRONG!
After over forty Modifieds took practice laps, the only Modified action was a one on one, "King of the Hill" event that twelve drivers bought into. Twelve rounds of one on one racing found that Johnny "Hitman" Whitman was the fastest as he beat Iowa's Ethan Braaksma in the finale. Braaksma, by the way, barely made it to 141 in time to unload and race this event.
The race was billed as a "run what you brung" event with no rules attached. Several of the drivers had tacked on some bigger spoilers on the back of their cars and Whitman had removed the roof from his car, which clearly must have made him much faster(sarcasm alert)! Don Scheffler was experimenting with a wing on the roof of his car but it must not have helped , as he removed it for the competition and instead went with big sideboards which helped him win one round before elimination.
The other specialty event was the "Ironman" race for the Stock Cars. In the old days, we used to call it an Australian Pursuit. Thirteen drivers bought into this race which had a format where they drew for positions, then raced the first five laps without regard of position. Following that, the last place car on each lap had to drop out of the race as they eliminated their way down to a final winner. Kyle Frederick took the lead early from the third row and led the rest of the way for the win.
Interestingly, one of the competitors that was allowed to practice and then race with the Stock Cars was asphalt Late Model driver Braison Bennett. But what was really interesting was that he was running his asphalt Late Model, the same car he races at Wisconsin International Raceway on Thursday nights on the tar. Obviously, the car looks dramatically different than the Stock Cars, riding much lower and considerably wider but he actually was keeping up quite well until he had a mechanical issue. Bennett does have dirt track experience as he also has a Sport Mod as well as his asphalt Late Model.
But the intriguing announcement for next year was left to Kruse, who announced that along with the Dirt Kings, the two specialty races and practice, the Thursday night portion of next year's Creek Classic would feature a race of the asphalt Late Models as a part of the program. Frankly, as fussy as the tar racers are about their cars, I was stunned that they were interested in doing something like this but apparently there has been enough interest to schedule it as a part of the show.
So, perhaps that will be enough to entice me to make a drive across the state next year on a Thursday night. We will see.
As a side note, I was concerned that traffic would be bad on this night, as the Packers were playing just not too many miles away at the same time as this race. As it turned out, it was not an issue. I beat the traffic going through Green Bay on the way over, and the game was still going on as I returned through "Title Town." Just to be safe, I took an alternative route so as not to get too close to Lambeau, but I could clearly see the lights and the stadium as I drove through town. The only thing the Thursday night game did to mess me up was to put the cops on high alert and for about fifty miles, there was a squad car hiding behind nearly every tree and bush. Restraint on the accelerator was the order of the night returning home.
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