(Full Disclosure - My Policy has always been to blog about non-WISSOTA sanctioned races on this site while sending all my WISSOTA event reports to the official WISSOTA paper, ALL THE DIRT Racing News. However, due to printing time lines and the planned issues upcoming to ATD, information on this race will never see print in that newspaper. With their permission, and actually following their suggestion, the report from this event will be on this blog. Hopefully readers of this blog will find out that there are some great events being done at some great race tracks in my WISSOTA part of the world.)
Friday and Saturday nights, October 10th and 11th, the seventeenth annual Fall Classic was held at the Wagamon family's Ogilvie Raceway in east central Minnesota. This event is one of the last races of the year in the WISSOTA region and has always been a popular race to attend for many teams looking to wrap up their season. FYE Motorsports Promotions annually leases the track from the Wagamon family to put on this event and runs it in cooperation with the regular staff from the Big O as Ogilvie Raceway in known.
All eight of the divisions that WISSOTA sanctions are a part of this two night show and this year the USRA Late Models were also invited to hold a one night on Saturday as a part of the event. With beautiful weather gracing the Midwest all weekend, there was no question that this race would be held and both fans and racers responded. The six sanctioned classes that routinely race at this track were on hand along with the Late Models and Pure Stocks plus the USRA Late Models on Saturday.
Car counts were very near the all time records for this event as a total of three hundred and twenty three drivers signed in to race plus a packed grandstand for this colossal event. Thirty Late Models were joined by fifty five Modifieds, fifty five Super Stocks, sixty seven Midwest Mods, twenty three Mod Fours, thirty six Street Stocks, seventeen Pure Stocks, twenty nine Hornets plus the eleven USRA Limited Lates on Saturday. Drivers were on hand from eight states and there would surely have been drivers from two Canadian provinces if the borders would have been open. To say it was a full pit area would be an understatement. A few years ago the Wagamon family bought some additional property bordering the track and that gets used for this event for additional pit parking plus they have also started a camping area just down the highway and offer shuttle service from the campground to the track.
Because of the enormity of this event, heat races are run on Friday night with the B Features and main events on Saturday. While officials would love to run two full programs, it just isn't logistically possible to complete two full shows without running probably from one day right into the next. While most drivers like to have two full shows, they clearly enjoy coming to this event no matter what the format. Speaking of that, drivers draw for their heats and then passing points are used to determine the lineups for the B Mains and Mains run on Saturday night.
The Ogilvie Raceway is a three eighth mile, banked oval that sits in the middle of farm country north of the Twin Cities and is in a great location to attract fans from several different directions as well as race cars. The laps that would be run on this track would be almost unmeasurable on this weekend and for the most part, the track held up beautifully. Heat races, most being ten laps, were held on Friday night and a total of thirty four heat races were run. The track crew did a great job of moving the show along and despite all the late arriving cars, the racing started just a few minutes after the 7 pm advertised time and the final checkered flag flew just before Midnight which I thought was quite remarkable.
The only major delay was when Forrest Foster violently flipped his Mod Four on the back chute in a wreck where he hit so hard that he bent the halo on his roll cage. Refusing medical attention, he later did visit a local hospital where he was then transported to a larger facility and reportedly did suffer a couple of broken vertebra in his back.
One of the more impressive teams on hand is the Woodie Racing Team, newcomers to the sport. They recently moved to this area and their arsenal of cars includes seven cars split between two classes with three stack rigs to bring the cars to the track where their drivers get used to dirt track racing after having spent time racing snowmobiles out West.
Joey Price came all the way from Great Falls Mt to race this weekend. He actually came to the area early as he purchased a Midwest Mod from a team in Michigan, picked it up and then headed back to Ogilvie to race. Late year he bought a Modified from a driver from the same area which he raced in Arizona as well as in his home area. He told me he plans to return to Cocopah again next January. Late he would win a MidMod heat on Friday night, only to come up a heat breaking five pounds light at the scale.
Saturday would see a series of B Features before the nine main events would start. The feature races were all good events with a couple actually being exceptional with two decided by last corner passes.
The two extremely close finishes were both in the open wheel classes. The Midwest Mod feature saw Jason VandeKamp lead for all but the last corner in the feature race. Travis Schulte worked the outside and stayed with that line and it eventually worked for him as he got a big run off the final corner and nipped VandeKamp at the line for the win. Modified driver Dave Cain was sitting in for Tony Bahr this weekend and he came from twelfth to finish third.
The other thriller was in the Modified class where Shane Sabraski, who has been having a career year this year in two separate classes, made a last corner pass on A.J. Diemel to get the win. Diemel and Jake Hartung were battling early before Diemel took the top spot. Their battling led to a spin and Hartung went to the back, to be replaced by Sabraski to dog the leader.
Diemel moved high and low on the track, trying to anticipate Sabraski's moves in the last going. After showing his nose low, Diemel moved to the bottom to block on the last lap and instead, Sabraski raced to the cushion, got a great run off the final corner and edged past Diemel by inches in a thriller. Ogilvie is Sabraski's home track and this race was very well received by the fans, knowing that they had seen a classic.
Despite all the laps on the track, the only race where the track gave up on the racers was the Late Model feature where it started to take rubber at the half way point. Jesse Glenz had taken the lead and was being chased by Pat Doar when they caught the back of the pack. Glenz got too impatient and tried to pass on the high side where he got out of the rubber and Doar passed him for the lead. Later Glenz and Diemel would tangle while battling and Glenz would get a flat tire and a DNF while Doar would drive on for the win over James Giassi and Dan Ebert.
The Super Stock feature would also see a case of the tortoise and the hare as in the Modifieds where Diemel took off hot but eventually would get caught. In this race, it was Dexton Koch who took off strong but in the late going Dan Mass would pick up the pace and with a very impressive pass, drive around Koch to take the win. Mass is the all time feature winner at the Big O in this class so he knows his way around this oval. Koch would settle for third.
The Limited Late Models would see current USRA national point leader Lucas Peterson lead from start to finish as he hopes to secure his second straight national title. Apparel vender Joe Provinzino would finish second with Miranda Carlson, who competed in both Late Model classes, third.
The Mod Four feature would see Dustin Holtquist lead for much of the contest before he was overtaken by Tommy Bawden who would drive on for the win. Holtquist would later get tripped up in the tech shed with his father Bob then gaining the official second place with Dean Larson third.
The Pure Stock feature would have a bit of controversy after Jared Akervik and Cory Jorgensen battled for the lead. They got together with Akervik spinning and he was tagged for the caution. Not agreeing with the call, he gave starter Brian Reidemann the "one finger salute" which drew him an immediate disqualification from the event. Jorgensen would inherit the lead but he couldn't hold it as he was passed by Kevin Baumgarner who would drive on for the win. Dusty Caspers finished third.
Passing was the name of the game in the Street Stock feature. Early on, Andrew Hanson, Justin Vogel and Kyle Dykhoff would battle for the lead but it would eventually be Ryan Satter from Dent Minnesota would drive by everyone to take the win. Satter, who started ninth on the grid, showed great speed as he used the outside line and drove by everyone for the win. Hard charging high school student Parker Anderson started seventeenth and with only three yellow flags to assist him, came in a strong second with Dykhoff third.
The Hornets rounded out the program and a full field of twenty five started their main event. Corey Mehrwerth came from the third row to take the win, edging out Joe Wilbur and John Aderman for the five hundred buck top prize in the class.
It was a huge amount of racing over two nights but the staff of FYE and the track did a great job of moving things along and providing top notch entertainment. For those who's interest in this track might be piqued, their season is not yet over. On October 23-24, they present their annual Topless Nationals. Racing will be Hornets, Street Stocks, Mod Fours, MidMods, Super Stocks and Modifieds, all racing without roofs. This race has grown in both recent years and now gets a large field of cars in all classes as drivers from a wide area look to get one more weekend of racing completed, and many travelers will be in the field to race with the area stars. Check the speedway website for more information.
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