On Thursday night, August 27th, the 3rd annual Russ Scheffler Tribute race was presented at the Plymouth Dirt Track in Plymouth Wisconsin. Late Models would be the focus on this night, as Scheffler was a very successful Late Model racer in Southern and Eastern Wisconsin primarily before his passing. However, also on the card on Thursday would be the three other divisions that weekly race at Plymouth and that would be the 360 Sprint Cars, the B Mods and the Grand National cars.
Very impressive fields of cars would be racing in all four classes with the Late Models signing in thirty cars while the 360 Sprints were just one behind, even though it was just a regular paying weekly show and of a Thursday night which made their strong presence even more impressive. Twenty five B Mods and seventeen Grand National cars would give us one hundred and one cars, a fine field indeed for a midweek show with only four classes of cars.
It was not that long ago that the Late Model class was on life support in eastern Wisconsin with few cars and few opportunities to race with one likely the cause of the other. However, the Late Models on this side of the state have made a great rebound in the last couple of years with the emergence of the Dirt Kings traveling Late Model tour certainly helping this situation along. Consider that there are still only two tracks in eastern Wisconsin that race Late Models on a weekly basis and ironically, both race on Saturday nights! That would be Shawano and here but despite that, the class has grown impressively in recent years. For example, Thursday night there were thirty Late Models on hand and only one was not from the eastern side of the state and that would be Greg Cantrell who towed up from DeKalb IL to race. Otherwise, all the competitors are from this region. The one thing that the Dirt Kings tour does provide especially is opportunities to race as they book shows into tracks that don't race Late Models and the drivers from this area do a great job supporting that series. So Late Model racing in eastern Wisconsin certainly looks to be on the rise.
Also, mention needs to be made about the strong 360 Sprint class here. Again, this was just a weekly show and on a Thursday yet they had twenty nine 360's in attendance and the announcer commented about how the numbers have been falling off some here at the end of the year, as often happens. If twenty nine cars is a "down" night, that fact alone is a pretty impressive statement.
The B Mods are just IMCA Sport Mods without the sanction while the Grand Nationals are a class that features new style bodies, stock front stubs and limitations on the motors and is a class not seen many other places other than here in eastern Wisconsin.
The Plymouth track is here at the Sheboygan County Fairgrounds which is a beautiful facility right here in the city of Plymouth with the track and fairgrounds virtually surrounded by residences and the city itself. That must make for some interesting situations but there must not be too much push back, given that they are racing on a Thursday night.
Plymouth hosts lots of big races, with the Sprints having shows from both the All Stars and World of Outlaws and the Late Models from that series have been here too as they have the seating and interest here to have those kinds of races.
It was an incredibly humid and hot day and storms were in the forecast for late afternoon and evening. Despite that fact, the pits were filled with race cars while perhaps the spectator side paid a little more attention to the weather as the big grandstands had plenty of open seats on this night. Storms were building all around with some very impressive thunderheads and cloud formations drifting over the track, but no rain fell from them and the show started as planned.
The track was very heavy with much packing needed and while the speeds when racing started were impressive, it was very tough to pass with the berm building to impressive heights to the point that even the 360's were struggling with it. They even needed to get the grader out and knock down the berm at one point, something that was risky given that we were racing on borrowed time.
Finally, with all the areas around the track already having been "dumped on", the rains hit the Plymouth Dirt Track just as the last B Feature was coming to the track. It didn't take long for track officials to determine that racing was done and about a quarter after nine, our night was complete. The program was called complete and the drivers were paid off. I don't know how they determined just how the money was divided up, but the racers did go home with money for that part of the show we had seen.
Interestingly, I found out that Lake Winnebago, the huge inland lake in Wisconsin that is famous for its Sturgeon population, is big enough that it often affects the local weather patterns, just like Lake Superior does for the towns around that lake. They were telling me that it often steers storms away from them, delays their arrival but then sometimes also funnels the race right at certain communities. Early in the evening, while we were watching the clouds boil and build, someone told me that their weather app, adjusted to the Lake Winnebago affect, told them that the rain would hold off until 9:10 pm, despite the fact that at that point it looked like it could pour at any second. Ironically and correctly, that prediction turned out to be within seconds of being accurate!
So I didn't get to see any feature race action on this night, but it wasn't a complete loss. A couple of interesting things I noted from the part of the show I saw included the fact that track officials used pylons when hot lapping , thus forcing the drivers to run a higher line early and hopefully, at least, widen out the track.
They also have a fun thing that the crowd does, as after the announcer goes down to the track surface to introduce the night and play the anthem, he asks them if they are ready for racing and the entire crowd responds by stomping on the metal grandstand floor to let everyone know that they are ready for the races to begin! I thought that to be a neat local tradition.
A couple of the local Grand National drivers had interesting names. A heat race winner was Chad Espen(I wonder if he likes sports?) but my favorite was veteran driver and many time track champion Richard Hed. Of course, he's not known at Richard Hed at the track. So if anyone says they really like that "old Dick Hed", no one takes that as an insult!
They plan to have a Dirt Kings tour race on Friday night as a part of their racing weekend doubleheader, but as I type this I have learned that they are already rained out for Friday.
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