The last racing weekend in the state of Minnesota for the 2021 racing season kicked off on Friday night, October 22nd at the Wagamon's Ogilvie Speedway, home of the Big O near Ogilvie Minnesota. The Big O hosted the eleventh annual Topless Nationals with five classes in racing action on this night.
An open competition show, the five classes racing were the Street Stocks, Mod Fours, Midwest Modifieds, Super Stocks and Modifieds. Since the Big O is WISSOTA sanctioned, three of the classes were those that are unique to WISSOTA while two of the open wheel classes allowed the basic rules of whatever sanctioning body the car raced under.
So we had the Street Stocks(although one Stock Car managed to sneak in and I don't know how that happened), Mod Fours and Super Stocks running WISSOTA rules while the Midwest Mods had IMCA and USRA cars running under their own rules as well as IMCA and USRA Modifieds running under their own rules.
This all made for an interesting mix of drivers and certainly many that don't get a chance to race at Ogilvie any other time during the season. And one would think that a lot of racers have had enough by this time of the year, particularly on what was predicted to be a sunny but very brisk forecast for the weekend with the first killing frosts of this growing season just happening the night before this race with that type of weather expected throughout the weekend.
However, for a race that is always very hard to predict just what the car counts will be, the pit area was jammed with race cars with the overflow field behind the back chute even being utilized as one hundred and seventy two cars signed in to race in just five divisions including a whopping seventy eight Midwest Mods.
And to prove that there were still plenty of drivers anxious to race, drivers were on hand from five states and two Canadian Provinces to wrap up their 2021 racing seasons.
And the one common denominator that all cars had, no matter what class they were in was that all ran without roofs for this weekend. Some had apparently prepared weeks ahead for this race as many of the bare roll cages were cleverly decorated as a "Best Appearing" is a part of this event. Everything from blinking lights to pumpkins, skulls and whole skeletons were riding along with some of the drivers in a once a year appearance while some of the teams were still frantically removing the roofs of their cars after arriving at the track.
This whole event is a fund raiser for the Hope Chest for Breast Cancer and Susan G. Komen Foundation research via Angie's Army and while the wall surrounding the track wasn't painted pink as in some years past, there were pink ribbons everywhere and kid's trick or treating including the pit area, Halloween costume contests for kids and adults alike, live music and dancing after the races on Friday night and a myriad of other things going on to celebrate the last race of the year.
Friday night would feature heat races only for all divisions with B Features, as needed, along with all the main events on Saturday night. There would be twenty heat races of ten laps apiece contested on Friday night using the draw/redraw format so it was important to draw a good number of a "soft" heat, or perhaps both. Finding the "soft" heats was a challenge so an up front starting position would be important.
While eight of the nine Midwest Mod heats were won right off the front row, it was not because the track was unpassable but more that some really strong cars started up front. Chris VanMil was an exception as he came from the fourth row to win his heat race. Josh Mattick would win a heat in his first appearance of the year here and rookie driver Jake Hagemann would also top a heat and North Dakota driver Jarret Carter would come from the back row of his heat to make the main.
Kegan Stueve would have perhaps his best run ever as he came from the fourth row to win a Street Stock feature while northwestern Minnesota aces Justin Vogel and Kyle Dykhoff would also take wins.
Eric Lamm, Shane Sabraski and Matt Aukland would win Modified heats and Sabraski would back that win with another in his Super Stock, being the only double winner of the night. Dave Mass, Dan Nissalke and rim riding Josh Zimpel would be other Super Stock winners. The Mod Four field has been depleted by this time of the year and their lone heat saw South Dakota's Bob Holtquist top son Dustin in that race.
B Features will be required for the Midwest Mods and Super Stocks before the main events proceed on Saturday with an early start time to try and beat the worst of the cool weather.
Track officials at Ogilvie ran off another efficient program as they have been doing for all their Fall specials this year with all racing being completed in under three hours with the final checkered flag waving just after 10 pm. The temperature indicator in my vehicle said it was thirty three degrees when I started it up so it was indeed a cool Autumn night. The pit area was jammed with onlookers and while the main grandstand was a bit light on Friday, many more people are expected to be on hand for the main events on Saturday. The dance was well under way by the time I cut through the main building on my way to the parking lot so those on hand were having a good time, cool weather or not.
Nate Fischer and his crew produced another good racing surface for the drivers with plenty of side by side racing and not a whisper of dust.
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