Twists and turns of fate continue as the weather situation for Summer 2024 remains fractured. While it was not in our plan to be at Ogilvie Raceway in Ogilvie Minnesota on Saturday night, July 13th, we were happy to be able to do so. Other plans were changed due to more storms that rolled through the Minnesota-Wisconsin area over the day on Saturday and while some tracks either dodged or just got hit with minor amounts of rain, others got drenched and their programs cancelled.
Ogilvie was on the end that saw little rain, and that swept through in the early morning hours, giving the blistering sun plenty of time to dry things off so they were able to complete the third night of their USMTS "Mod Wars" series that featured the USMTS drivers vs. the local and area WISSOTA drivers. Along with that featured division, the WISSOTA Mod Fours and Midwest Modifieds again had a full show of heats and feature races.
Most everyone that had been on hand earlier in the week was still racing as thirty nine Modifieds plus thirty one MidMods and sixteen Mod Fours signed in to race on Saturday night. One interesting addition was local star Shane Sabraski, who has moved to the Late Model ranks in 2024 and while he still races a Mod successfully, he is focusing on his new Late Model effort this year. In fact, he was coming off a special event win on Friday night that paid him a cool eleven grand for his win but being the racer he is, he would not take a night off and instead showed up here ready to race his WISSOTA Modified.
The cap had been broken and the sun came out in full force and it was a miserably hot and steamy Saturday. However, more storms were in the forecast and in fact, they were already starting to show on radar with the projections that they might arrive at the Big O by as early as 9 pm so it appeared that punctuality would be important on this night and generally speaking, Ogilvie is very good at starting on time and moving their shows along.
That's why it was so maddening what they did on Saturday and the conspiracy side of me felt like they might have been poking along on purpose with the hopes that it would rain on their parade. That was probably ridiculous but on a night when I expected them to start right on the dime and perhaps even turn the running order so the Modifieds would race first, instead they floored me by not started until forty two minutes after the advertised starting time. Apparently the high humidity had taken them by surprise and the track just didn't dry out with extra packing and trips by the support classes needed to get the track in racing shape.
Fortunately, the storms started to slow down and that never turned out to be an issue with racing being completed just after 10:30 pm and no sign of dangerous weather approaching but the whole thing caused my blood pressure to rise!
The Saturday program would be identical to that of Thursday night when I was last there, with the in between show on Friday being won by Jake O'Neal. On Saturday, there would again be four heats and a pair of B Features to set the field for the fifty lap finale which would pay eleven grand to the winner. More provisional starters were added on Saturday nigh and twenty eight driver would take the green for the main.
Fifty laps in such heat was a grind for the teams but they took off at a torrid pace, with Gabe Hodges and Jeremy Nelson exchanging the lead at least four times in the first eight laps before Nelson took control. Following his strong run on Friday, he again put together a strong effort that would see him lead until lap nineteen when O'Neal would get past him to take over the top spot. Nelson would eventually fade back in the field some and not finish due to a late flat tire.
O'Neal, meanwhile, was in control for most of the second half of the race. Nelson led to the first yellow on lap nineteen when Hodges and Tyler Davis got together and on the restart, O'Neal drove past Nelson to make the pass, and after that he would lead the rest of the race. Another slow down at the halfway point for a violent collision between Zack VanderBeek and Kyle Brown badly damaged those cars and slowed the race once again.
However, the last twenty five laps ran off green to checkers and Terry Phillips, who had worked into second. gave O'Neal plenty of competition over the second half of the race. He got a nose under O'Neal on several occasions and came close to moving into the lead but he just couldn't quite pull off the move when needed. Phillips followed closely but in the last few laps O'Neal was able to widen the margin slightly with the last twenty five laps going green.
Jim Chisholm drove a steady race, never challenging for the lead but running third for most of the last half of the race while Tanner Mullens came from fourteenth to fourth ahead of Jake Timm who did some hard driving himself as he moved up from eighteenth. Meanwhile, Sabraski, who had to qualify through a B Feature, came up from nineteenth to seventh in the final running order. Chisholm's race was much more orderly than the pre race preps as their team changed a motor before the feature and had to scramble to get that accomplished. Eighteen drivers were still on the track at the finish with all but three on the lead lap.
Tyler Larson led from start to finish to win the fifteen lap Mod Four feature race over Dustin Holtquist and Luke Erlandson. Larson pulled to an immediate lead quickly and was never seriously challenged while Holtquist moved up from the fourth row to get second.
Ryan Savoy led the opening lap of the MidMod feature before he was passed by defending national champion Zach Benson. Once Benson is in front, he usually stays right there but on Saturday, David Swearingen was able to move up from the third row and pass Benson for the lead on lap thirteen and then pull away for an impressive win.
On the last lap, North Dakota driver Lucas Rodin was able to sneak past Benson and grab the runner up spot. Wyatt Boyum and Blake Adams completed the top five with the last nineteen laps going green.
It was a hot and brutal three nights of racing and the track team was put to the test. Thanks go out to all the track workers and folks from USMTS for a combined effort to get this show completed. An interesting tidbit secret. Ryne Staley, who is in charge of putting up and taking down all the banners that hang around the track, tells me that he goes through twenty two thousand zip ties over the course of a racing season. Think about that.
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