Tuesday night, June 15th was the opening night for the Clash at the Creek XIII at the 141 Speedway near Maribel and Francis Creek Wisconsin. Tuesday night's action would feature a full show for the United Street Stocks along with practice for the IMCA Modifieds, Stock Cars and Sport Mods in preparation for their program which begins on Wednesday night. A surprisingly large crowd of spectators would be on hand for this opening night of three with many curious to see just who would be on hand to race for the $10,000 top prize that will be doled out to the fifty lap Modified winner on Thursday night. The Stock Cars and Sport Mods will run full programs on both Wednesday and Thursday night with the top prize raised to fifteen hundred bucks for the Stock Cars each night thanks to a local sponsor that just came on board early this week.
This would be my first visit of the year to an eastern Wisconsin track, having spend most of the early racing season on the western side of the state along with my occasional adventures South and West to Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Louisiana, the Dakotas etc. I'm hearing that racing is off to a strong start on this side of the state with good crowds in the stands and good racing across the board on both dirt and tar tracks. However, there is some indication that this might start to change shortly though as many are worried about short fields of cars being a problem as soon as the end of this month.
Something that I was not totally aware of and was brought to my attention upon arriving here is an increasingly worrisome problem about their being a tire shortage of racing tires and wheels. I'm told it truly is a concern on this side of the state and not just some trumped up issue as teams are reporting that they are having trouble getting tires and wheels, dealers are either short or totally out of stock and that there is a genuine concern that some racers are going to have to cut back on the nights they race, simply because they haven't enough tires to go around. Who would have ever thought this would be an issue but apparently despite utterances by the tire companies that they are meeting demand, something else would be much closer to the reality according to the racers.
However, the Clash at the Creek is a very big race for the eastern Wisconsin teams and apparently so for many other drivers as the number of out of state drivers is large for this race and certainly Toby Kruse, one of the partners in 141 Speedway and of course the promoter at Marshalltown Speedway, has much to do with that. Several of the hot laps sessions conducted on Tuesday looked more like a session at a central or eastern Iowa track, not in the heart of the Dairyland.
Tuesday night's program would consist of practice sessions that were fit around a full show of the Street Stocks so there was practice, then heat races for the Street Stocks, then more practice, then Street Stock B Features, then practice, the Street feature and then, guess what, yes, more practice. Apparently the concern about burning up tires doesn't apply to this week!
The Unified Street Stocks race at about eight tracks on the eastern and southern side of the state of Wisconsin and would fall somewhere between the Stock Cars and Hobby Stocks in the speed spectrum. They are very hard to tell from the Stock Cars although most do run a spoiler which tips them off but all run on Hoosier racing tires so they look much like the Stock Cars. This is a very popular class on this side of the state with some younger drivers looking to get experience before they move up while others are veterans of the class, racing for many years and staying right in this class. This race would be the first of their "Red, White and Blue" series for the year and the winner would pocket a grand for a twenty five lap win.
Qualifying for the Streets would be quite aggressive but with the hard, one spin rule employed at 141, while there was plenty of banging and pushing in the six qualifying races, the yellow flag waved only once.
However, the twenty four car (make that twenty three cars when veteran Gary Kasperek blew his motor while securing a transfer spot in a B) would get even rougher with what I would call some rather ruthless driving for the cash.
The track was quite used up by the time the Street Stocks saw it for the main event and this uniquely shaped oval generally sees the lower horsepower cars pretty much hug the lower groove of the track so most passing is by either slipping inside someone's mistake or forcing the issue and making them get off the bottom. On this night there was plenty of the later as there was so much "rooting people off the bottom" that any dentist would have been thrilled!
And it started right up front soon after pole sitter Jesse Krahn took the early lead. He was soon pushed off the bottom by Cody Potter, driving a unique looking 57 Chevy with a substantially reinforced front bumper that he knew how to use. He forced the issue and took the lead with Krahn closely following. That means in layman's terms that he was beating the heck out of Potter's rear bumper in each corner.
Behind these two, the same kind of thing was going on repeatedly as cars were being pushed into the infield, huge ute tires were forced onto the track and the race more resembled a roller derby contest than anything else.
Mid race Krahn paid back Potter with a blast(literally) of his own down the back chute that allowed him to shoehorn his way back into the lead. Potter tried to return the favor but Krahn drove him into one of the ute tires which rolled on to the track and triggered yellow number four. The tire was blamed for the slow down and all kept their positions.
The last few laps saw Krahn sprint away from the field and Potter couldn't catch up to tattoo the rear bumper of Krahn, so Jesse drove on for the win with Potter settling for second with both likely promising to strap on steel plate before their next encounter. Shanon Guelette would finish third and surprisingly, despite all the goings on during the race, the low speeds of the cars keep the big crashes from happening and only three cars out of the starting field didn't see the checkered.
Approximately twenty two Sport Mods and a dozen Stock Cars also took practice laps on Tuesday with full fields expected in both classes for their double shows upcoming this week.
As far as the Modifieds were concerned, at least sixty cars took practice laps so it appears that Wednesday nights double heat races, where the top ten in points will lock into the fifty lapper on Thursday night, will be highly competitive.
A sampling of who was on hand would see Iowa drivers O'Brien, Rust, Snyder, Ward, Thume, McDonald, Current, Bonine, Demey, Brown, Berry Jr and Dotson all taking laps on this night with more expected to show up on Wednesday. Also working out were P. Taylor, K. Wallace, Phillips, Hobscheid, Grabouski, Bone Larson and Jeremy Thornton among drivers from out of state so it will be a real battle between the "Cheeseheads" and the invaders when they start counting points for real on Wednesday night.
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