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Sunday, May 4

Granite City Motor Park held its second race of the 2025 racing season on Sunday, May 4. It may have been the finest weather night of the season so far. There was sunshine, warm conditions and a notable absence of the strong wind we’ve been dealing with, seemingly forever.

The special event on Sunday was a special for the Midwest Mods, with $1,000 going out to the feature winner. The program consisted of four WISSOTA classes plus the first-ever appearance of the non-sanctioned Crown Vics. Though the Hornets and Street Stocks had the night off, the remaining four sanctioned classes all produced good solid fields in numbers and quality.

Among the entries on Sunday was the first track appearance for one of central Minnesota’s longest-tenured drivers, Vic Schmidt. Vic tells me that Sunday was the start of his 53rd year of racing, having started at this very track when he was 18 years old. He also told me that the Midwest Mod he was driving will be old enough next year to legally drink in Minnesota — that will give you an idea of the veteran equipment the veteran driver is racing.

LaPorte Modified driver Lance Schilling was also racing for the first time in 2025. He has long-been a regular at Bemidji, but its season doesn’t start until Memorial Day weekend. As a result, he wanted to get out and check out some other tracks. Having won the track title in the Mods at Bemidji last year and checking that off his bucket list, he is considering a year where he moves around to more tracks and races at places he's never been able to before. Surprisingly, his visit to Granite City was the first time he has ever raced here.

One of the Crown Vic drivers was Dan Harstad, a former WISSOTA racer who just took over this year as the flagman at Ogilvie Raceway. I guess it’s hard to get the desire to race totally out of your system. I am aware of a flagman down in Iowa who works at three or four different tracks but still has a Hornet he races when given the opportunity.

Racing highlights for the Sunday show include a pair of really excellent main events in the Midwest Mods and Super Stocks, two more wins for Shane Sabraski, and a really bizarre Mod Four feature that included an incident that very rarely ever happens at the track.

Top-notch drivers were on hand in both the Midwest Mods and Super Stocks, and both of these feature races were very intense.

The extra money offered for the Midwest Mods made them drive that much harder. Young bucks Landyn Randt and Blake Adams went at it early for the lead, with Cole Boston, Jake Smith and Tyler Vernon right behind. Plenty of sliders were thrown as the battle raged but almost unnoticed, Joey Jensen was making time in his drive from ninth. He was using a line that no one else was running. He gradually moved forward and by lap 10 had driven under everyone else for the top spot.

He was seemingly home-free at that point. However, Randt is a very aggressive driver and not afraid to search the track for a faster line. He found it following a lap-22 yellow. Randt had a great run off turns one and two and blasted past Jensen to retake the lead. He then pulled away and looked to have the field covered, until he hooked a rut leaving turn four and nearly shot into the outside wall. By the time he recovered, Jensen drove back past him and then held on for the rest of the race for the win. Randt and Smith finished behind him.

Any time you see a Super Stock race in central Minnesota, you know there will be a bunch of the toughest cars in all of WISSOTA battling it out with each other. Throw in a couple of visiting drivers and you have a tough-as-nails Super Stock class.

The first 12 laps of the Super feature was epic. Kolby Kiehl surprised front-row starters Dexton Koch and Tommy Bawden by sneaking past both of them and leading the opening lap. Kiehl and Koch then put on a show, exchanging the lead five times between them in the opening 10 laps. Then, suddenly, here comes seventh-starter Sabraski, who grabbed the lead away from both of them.

Curt Myers, who started ninth, almost stole the top spot from Sabraski at the end, but ended up settling for a close second over Kiehl and Denis Czech in a great race.

The Mod Four feature was a strange race. There were three different leaders and eventual winner Dustin Holtquist didn’t take the lead until lap 13, so there was plenty of racing going on.

The wild part was that there were three flips during the feature. When is that last time you saw three flips in one racing night, much less in one feature? And two of them came at the same time, as a wild scramble on a restart ended with two cars tumbling right in front of the crowd on the front chute. Both Tyler Larson and Andrew Milz ended up going over, with Milz hanging upside down. It was a tough night for the Milz clan; earlier in a heat race, Andrew's sister Maeghan slammed the wall very hard doing a lot of damage to her car. Fortunately, she was okay. Dawson Oelrich was the other driver to roll after climbing the turn two fence.

Devin Fouquette just likes to race. On nights when his Late Model isn't racing anywhere, he brings out a Modified, and did just that on Sunday at Granite City. He took the early lead and then had a good battle with Joseph Thomas, exchanging the lead twice in the first half of the race. Then Sabraski came motoring up from the third row, passed both, and according to track announcer Kyle Hall, he claimed feature win No. 956. Thomas and Fouquette had to settle for the next finishing positions.

Nikki Cook told me previously via email that tracks using the choose cone will have to have officials watching very closely, so drivers don't try to change lanes and illegally gain an advantage. Officials ere right on the money on Sunday as twice I saw drivers, either inadvertently or trying to be sneaky, trying to change lanes after they had passed the choose cone — but both times they were quickly redirected back to where they should have been initially.

The only down side to Sunday's program was how late it finished. All the wrecks and cleanup took time. Some nights this happens to everyone, though the ultimate goal is to have a quick show when folks have to go to work or school the next day.

Friday, May 9

The Structural Buildings WISSOTA Late Model Challenge Series kicked off its 2025 campaign on Friday, May 9 at I-94 emr Speedway in Fergus Falls, MN. Late Model drivers jumped right off the deep end of the pool with a three-night opening weekend campaign to start the season. From the fast three-eighths here in Fergus, they headed to the high banks of the half-mile at Viking on Saturday, and then on to the quarter-mile bullring at Granite City Motor Park to round out the weekend.

Along with the Late Models, four other WISSOTA divisions were in racing action, including Modifieds, MidMods, Street Stocks and Hornets, making for a very busy and somewhat long night of racing.

Thirty-seven Late Models signed in to race on Friday, a number I thought was very good. There were two other facilities also racing on Friday that entertain Late Models, and that may have provided additional entries if they weren't in action. All three of the other tracks had good car counts as well. For two of those tracks, it was opening night.

It was a somewhat bittersweet opening night for the series for myself and Scott Tiefs. There was a part of us that also wanted to be in Menomonie, Wisconsin for Red Cedar Speedway’s opener. Tiefs is the regular track announcer at Red Cedar, and he told me it was the first opener in the last 20 years he had missed.

For many years, I have been attending Red Cedar as my regular Friday night track. I wrote stories for them for many years and was a spectator both before and after that. My number of continuous openers was likely even much higher than 20. But, soon we’ll be back there at the track.

The format for the series appeared to be the same as what they used in 2024. Qualifying time trials were used, with the field split into four groups. Drivers qualified against their group. Pat Doar was the quickest of all, at 16.236 seconds. Don Shaw, Tyler Peterson and Sam Mars topped their groups, as the track lost about a half second of speed throughout the course of qualifying.

The top four in each group are then inverted for the heats, with passing points used. That, along with the qualifying points, set the 16 locked into the main event. Everyone else was left to start one of a pair of B Features. There were three provisional starters on Friday.

While the heat races are always intense and very important, there seemed to be just a little more drama on Friday. The action actually started way back in qualifying when Kevin Eder had motor trouble and Shawn Meyer slammed the wall, thus making for a scramble for both. Eder eventually got a provisional spot while Meyer watched the main event.

Then in the heat races, there was more action. Tyler Peterson, in an attempt to make a bold move, ended up hammering the wall instead. He took a provisional spot. Lee Grosz also had issues; it appeared that he was taken out on the last corner of his heat, but officials didn’t see it that way. Instead of a great starting spot in the main, he ended up in a B Feature and ultimately also out of the show.

The 40-lap main was also a race of contrasts, with a slow start, huge drama around the halfway point, and then another long run until late-race action. The race had a devil of a time getting started, with two multi-car wrecks in the first three laps that had everyone wondering what was going on.

Things eventually smoothed out and the next 28 laps ran off under the green flag. Don Shaw got the jump on Kevin Burdick and led early, actually pulling away to a considerable advantage. Burdick started to back slide, as Shane Sabraski, Cole Schill and Jeff Provinzino all drove past him. Schill was up to third and running great when he suddenly shut his car down and dove into the infield.

Shaw was setting a blistering pace but eventually he started to get a bit loose and gradually the field caught back up to him. Sabraski put a hard charge on for several laps, making multiple attempts to pass before getting by on lap 20. Burdick was making a charge of his own, as he found a line that was very fast and he came marching back up to the front.

Just one lap later Burdick drove past Sabraski to take the lead.

Eighth-starter Sam Mars was also on the move, and drove into fourth. Sabraski started a bit of a slide backward as well, as Shaw moved into second with Mars behind in third. As Burdick opened up distance on the front-runners, the next drama occurred with 31 laps completed; Mars and Shaw came together while battling for second. Mars had tried a slider in turn four, it wasn't pretty, and didn't work out, and the resulting contact eventually led to Shaw spinning out.

It was time for an official call and a tough one it was, as both parties were guilty of being a part of what happened. The official call sent Mars to the rear and he chose to pull off, while Shaw was returned to second place. I suspect various parties will be “chewing” on this call for quite some time. I know there was plenty of conversation in our area of the grandstand as well. Let's leave it at that.

Shaw stalked Burdick over the last nine laps, looking for an opening as both tore around the high side of the speedway. Most expected Shaw to try one last slider and we weren't disappointed; during the final lap, he threw a big one at Burdick in turn one. However, Burdick saw it coming, crossed over Shaw just as the “book says,” and then regained the lead down the back stretch. He dove low into turn three to keep Shaw from trying another one and Burdick drove across the line as the winner with Shaw a couple car lengths behind.

The action wasn't over yet though, as coming for the finish, Ryan Mikkelson clipped the wall in turn four and went barrel-rolling down the front chute. It was a tense moment as drivers speeding to the finish were able to avoid him and he climbed out unhurt.

What a tough break for Mikkelson, as he was debuting a brand-new SSR chassis. Friday was the first night of getting laps on the car. They were even running it around the pits before the show just to make sure that everything was okay and set to go. He had brought in Marshall Fegers to be his wrench on this night.

Provinzino was also very impressive in his debut of a brand-new car of his own design, as he ran a strong third. Sabraski and Cole Searing completed the top five. Searing overcame a first-lap tangle and an 11th starting spot to gain a top five. Sixteen drivers completed the race, all on the lead lap. There certainly was plenty of drama and likely plenty to discuss afterward. Stay tuned for upcoming rounds.

The Modified feature turned out to be a dandy. The drivers ran off 20 nonstop laps with the outcome not settled until the white flag lap. Tyler Peterson took the lead right from the start with fellow front-row starter Travis Saurer chasing him for the whole race.

At times, Saurer actually looked faster, as he closed on Peterson. Peterson used the track well and with the high side dominant, he made sure to cover that lane. Saurer tried and tried, but just couldn't get past, pressing and then fading just a bit.

He made one last attempt in the final laps and closed to the rear bumper of Peterson. With a bold move in turn three, he was able to drive under Peterson and come out the other end clean and with the lead. He then pulled away on the final tour to take the win.

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