Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Gravel On The Rubber for Huset's Win

 Monday night, June 21st, I did something out of the ordinary for myself. Not being too much of a follower of Sprint Car racing other than to kind of keep an eye on who is doing the winning, an opportunity came up that I just couldn't pass up. 

A rare Monday night race was available and with nothing else on my schedule for that night, and also by coincidence finding myself in South Dakota after weather drove me out there on Sunday, I was in the neighborhood as Huset's Speedway welcomed the World of Outlaws Sprint cars for part one of the "Showdown" between themselves and Jackson Speedway across the border in Minnesota. Also, I had not been to Huset's in many years, certainly not since all the renovations were made that made the place almost unrecognizable so this was an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. 

It was a rare cool June day in the heartland as a cold front had blown threw the previous day and the temperatures were struggling to reach even seventy degrees and a sweatshirt would be needed before the night was over. 

I can't begin to even detail all the changes that have taken place at Huset's since its major renovation but while it still sits on the sidehill and the parking lot in down in the hole, just about everything else looks different. One major improvement was the moving of the pits to the outside of the track, thus improving the visibility of the fans without a lot of vehicles etc. cluttering up the infield. Being just a quarter mile oval, the size of the track also makes the action even more fierce. 

Huge money is on the line for the Sprint Cars this week courtesy of Todd Quiring who owns both Huset's and Jackson and since he recovered Huset's from the dormant state it was languishing in, he is almost a folk hero in these parts.  The "Shootout" will offer $30,000 to the winner of Tuesday night's fifty lap feature at Huset's and there is a one hundred grand bonus in play for a sweep of Huset's and Jackson and these are the kind of numbers that even get the attention of the WoO drivers. With that much money on the line this week and little travel required by the teams, this event was a big draw and there were forty three Sprint Cars signed in to race on this night. And for a Monday night race, there was also a gigantic crowd on hand too, many of which have taken Tuesday off based on the amount of "barley pop" that they were swigging down. 

This would be a one class program with only the Sprint Cars in action so a few breaks were necessary to give crews a chance to prep their cars between races and do some necessary track work too. Still, because they ran time trials as the Outlaws always do, the show didn't get started until around 8:20 pm (see previous blogs for my comments about time trials and how they totally destroy planned starting times), but they got the whole show done in about two hours time. 

Cars are blinding fast here on this banked black dirt oval with Kerry Madsen being the quickest at 10.706 seconds. It was the usual format for the Outlaws with heats, a C Feature that was necessary on Monday, a Last Chance race and dash that would set the first four rows for the feature and the main event, on this night being thirty five laps on this smaller oval. 

It was a block buster front row for the main event with David Gravel on the pole and Donny Schatz next to him. They would battle on the opening lap before Schatz would take the lead away. Gravel was closely following and within seven laps the leaders were battling lapped traffic which is a huge thing here. Getting through the traffic determines who gets the win or not as normally there is so much traffic that getting hung up kills momentum. 

On this night, it was Gravel that made the right moves. Schatz came up on a slower car quickly and got pinned to the low side of the track and Gravel tore past him for the lead. Shortly after, the only yellow flags of the race took place when Aaron Reutzel exploded a tire and then two cars tangled on the restart. Other than that, it was smooth sailing and the thirty five laps just flew by. 

Gravel had a decent lead until he caught the back of the pack and then he couldn't get past Brock Zearfoss as the track started to rubber up badly. There was one groove near the high side and to get out of that lane would be a disaster. With Gravel being slowed, Schatz was able to catch him and make one attempt to drive under him but it didn't work, he lost some ground and the race ended before he could attempt another pass while Gravel stayed in the rubber.  The margin of victory was .297 seconds.   Kerry Madsen, driving Tony Stewart's car, finished a strong third with Brad Sweet and Kyle Larson following. Larson didn't have much to show the crowd on this night as a strong field and track conditions kept him from standing out. It probably didn't hurt the feelings of management when the winning car had Huset's Speedway plastered all over it. 

To be honest, the track conditions proved to be a major disappointment for me. Let's face it, a rubbered up race track is no good, no matter what class of cars are racing on it and you know it was bad when the leader can't pass the last place car and was forced to just stay in line and try to protect his position. The cars were smoking their right rear tires coming off the corners and the leaders all commented afterward that they were all just about out of tires. This happened in thirty five laps. What will happen when they try to run fifty on Tuesday?

Even though they dumped water on the track all afternoon and took three breaks to till the track and add water after the heats, C and Last Chance race, they still ended up with a rubbered up mess. Since they run Sprint Cars here on a weekly basis, I would have thought they would have had a better handle on track prep than they showed on this night but perhaps it was just one of those nights. 

I guess folks that attend the WoO races come to expect what happened because they all seemed totally enthralled with the action but what I saw was eight races that were all won from the front row, only one change of the lead in the feature and lots of raw power and speed but not a lot of racing. This is not a condemnation of the Sprint Cars as much as it is of this form of racing that uses time trials to set the running order and then starts everything straight up and when the cars are so closely matched, it makes it hard to pass, particularly when the track doesn't allow much.  

Speaking of rock stars, the Governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, was on hand to welcome everyone to the races and wave the opening green flag. Clearly she is highly thought of by the home state race fans in attendance as they treated her like a rock star and she acted the same way in return. My feelings on her, based on what her comments had been during the Pandemic made me think more of rockhead than rock star but that is a topic for another conversation. On this night, she had the spectators eating out of her hand.

Other stars on hand included Doug Clark, long the flagman at the Knoxville Raceway. While he doesn't flag here at Huset's, he still works at the track as he is the coordinator for the infield staging and action and his son Justin is the starter as waving flags and dodging debris seems to run in the family. 

I would imagine that another huge crowd will be on hand for Tuesday night's show and this track now seats in the thousands. Quite amazing to me was that even with the big crowd, the traffic egress from the track was smooth and it took no time at all to be on the way afterward. 

Thanks to the folks at the World of Outlaws for letting me in to witness this race which is more than just a race but an "event" and special thanks to "Crazy Martin" for snagging for me one of the best seats in the house while I was roaming the pits. 

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