Wednesday night, July 17th, the Silver Dollar Nationals began its four night run at Huset's Speedway on the South side of Brandon South Dakota. The Silver Dollar Nationals, long held at I-80 Speedway near Greenwood Nebraska, was moved to this venue last year after I-80 was shut down, sold and eventually dismantled. The event was so successful last year that it again returned to Huset's this year with the Lucas Oil Late Model drivers running for fifty three thousand dollars to win in their feature race on Saturday night.
But before that race, there would be three other nights of racing including Wednesday's opener which would give a whole different set of drivers and car types the chance to race as a part of this event. Wednesday night the Tri-State Late Model Series would run perhaps their highest paying event of the year and the IMCA Stock Cars raced as a series event for the Dirt Crown East Summer Series where they were on the third night of a three night swing of tracks in western Minnesota and then across the border here to South Dakota. Huset's offered them a very nice purse with three thousand dollars going to the winner of the Stock Car show while the Late Models were racing in the annual Ben Nothdurft Memorial race which offered six thousand dollars to the race winner, a Tri-State high for 2024.
Perhaps most importantly, it was good to see Huset's Speedway back in action and all dried out following their devastating flood right in the middle of one of their highest profile Sprint races, an event that has been rescheduled to later this year. Things looked pretty dry, the campers had returned but I was told by a track employee that there were still several campers sitting right where they were abandoned as the owners wait on action from insurance companies. What a mess that must have been.
This is one of the biggest events on the Tri-State schedule, a traveling series that races at tracks primarily in South Dakota but also have a few events in both Iowa and western Minnesota. Their rules are a blended set of rules, not unlike the SLMR which allow open motors, spec engines and even crate engines to race with rules attempting to equalize the horsepower different with weight. However, no matter how they attempt to do it, my observation has been that the open motor cars still have the advantage and do the majority of the winning.
With this race being a big one for them, they had a fine field of forty five drivers sign in that included their own traveling drivers, some SLMR drivers from Iowa and Nebraska and a number of WISSOTA spec engine drivers from South Dakota and Minnesota.
Tri-State qualifies the drivers for their shows and then starts the heat races straight up. The winners of the heats redraw against each other while the second place finishers also redraw against each other. The others are filled in as they finish with their series often not having enough entrants to require a B Feature . However, on this night, there would be two B's that followed six heat races where the rules of driving etiquette often went out the window in an attempt to make the thirty five lap main. Billy Leighton Jr. was quick qualifier at 13.111 seconds.
Early on, we found out that Ricky Thornton Jr was going to drive a car for Justin Zeitner in this race, an arrangement that was cemented months ago before the recent drama that swept the dirt Late Model world. In fact, Zeitner was doing everything he could to down play the whole experience, scoffing at the idea that they should have had t shirts made or basically anything that would have brought extra attention to the #62 pit. Justin had two identical cars on hand and was going to let Ricky pick whichever one he wanted to drive, after which they would plaster a #20RT on it and Justin would drive the other car. If nothing else, the ride sharing would bring a little extra notoriety to the event and as it turned out, it would be a huge move by the Zeitner team.
Twenty five drivers would start the thirty five lap main event for the Late Models on the quarter mile oval(don't believe anything that says it's any bigger than that) and this is not a wide track for Late Models. Everything is tight here and thus, under speed, there would be plenty of contact between drivers as the race progressed. However, almost unbelievably, this race would go nonstop for thirty five laps with a great showing of driving skills by the drivers. Not only that, there would be only one driver that didn't finish the race so you can imagine just how heavy the lapped traffic was. Honestly, it was quite a bit like Macon Speedway in that regard.
Leighton Jr, who redrew the outside pole, would get the jump on Thornton Jr and take the early lead. The outside was the place to be and Thornton Jr. struggled to keep up in the early going. However, we then got to see what has made Thornton Jr such a star and he started to move around the track, found a line right in the middle of the track where no one else was running, and then started to catch Leighton Jr for the lead.
Leighton Jr. was already in lapped traffic and starting to fight, as the slower cars were running that same high line that he was and he was getting bottled up. Thornton Jr, however, was a lane lower and showing great skill in traffic, in a car he had never sat in before, he was able to drive under Leighton Jr down the front chute on laps sixteen and take over the lead.
Then we got to see even greater skills from Thornton Jr as he made some moves in traffic that were quite remarkable, shooting between lapped cars and going both high and low, as needed, to keep his speed up. The traffic was worse than "The Can of Worms" in Des Moines at 5 pm on Friday but Ricky just kept pulling away and never backing off.
The list of lapped cars continued to grow and as those other racers kept at it, he just lapped deeper into the field was the green flag stayed out. At the finish, there were only eight cars on the lead lap and he was right on the tail of eighth place Corey Zeitner. Thornton Jr had five lapped cars between himself and second place Leighton Jr with Tad Pospisil making a big charge that saw him move up to third at the finish. Justin Zeitner and Josh Leonard completed the top five as SLMR cars dominated. The first spec engine across the line was sixth place finisher Scott Ward.
And while the Late Model feature was a smooth running event, the Stock Car main was just exactly the opposite kind of race. The Stock Cars drew for their starting positions in the heats and then redrew for the main event after running four heats and one big B Feature. Twenty four of them would start their thirty lap main and my pencil nearly went dull as there were seven yellow flags in this race and many more drivers that failed to finish then those that did.
However, through all the yellows and the mayhem, the racing up front was excellent with much trading of positions and some severe battling going on. Chanse Hollatz would be scored the leader of the first twenty eight laps of the race but that statistic was a bit misleading as while he led, he had several different drivers on his rear bumper at various times of the race.
First it was Dylan Fitzgerald( a later flip victim) and then Kelly Shryock was his most persistent challenger but right next to them were Derek Green, Damon Murty, Kyle Vanover and the Larsons, all battling and swapping spots as the race was run at a fitful pace, with much starting and stopping due to all the yellows.
There was a point near the middle of the race when ten consecutive laps were achieved but then things got bogged down again. However, there was so much drama with the battling that it didn't feel tedious like it could have.
Hollatz was running right in the "ditch" and he seemed like he didn't ever want to leave that lane. Shryock was right behind him literally but had no room to maneuver. Vanover was the story though, as he came from fourteenth to gradually become a part of the action and he began to press Shryock for second. Kelly made a mistake and came off the bottom and was replaced by Vanover and with no where else to go, Kelly moved to the high side of the track, a place he often doesn't venture to any more in his career.
To his surprise and perhaps the rest of us too, that line was fast for him and soon he was beside Hollatz and challenging for the lead. On lap twenty eight, he drove past Hollatz on the high side on the front chute to take over the lead with Vanover pushing Hollatz.
The red then flew when Fitzpatrick hooked the berm and flipped and on the restart, Hollatz pushed too hard to try and get the lead back, spun and was blasted by Mike Nichols with both cars done for the night. The two lap sprint to the finish saw Shryock take control and grab perhaps the biggest lead of the race as he took the checkers over Vanover, Jeffrey Larson, Dustin Larson and Green.
For Shryock, it was his first win at Huset's since a Modified win way back in 2011 when the USMTS visited on occasion to the track. Only eleven cars from the original starting field were still running at the end as the wreckers got a work out and lots of damaged equipment to be fixed before next weekend's racing commences. The Stock Cars were literally throwing their weight around on each other on this night on a fast and heavy race track.
One comment about the Stock Car field. I hope that the IMCA Stock Cars are not going in the way that the Elijah Zevenbergen car appeared as that might have been the ugliest looking Stock Car I ever saw and a look that I hope no other team goes to or the novelty of the class might be lost.
The Stock Car feature was a long, long race but with the Late Models going nonstop, the race schedule was helped a great deal and the final checkers waved before 11 pm. on this preliminary night. It was a highly entertaining night of racing and a good start to what will likely be a big weekend of action.
Thanks to all the folks at the pit shack at Huset's as well as the rest of the employees. I particularly enjoyed the work of track announcer Shawn Neisteadt who was very knowledgeable about the various types of cars in action on Wednesday.
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