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Sunday, May 18

One of the few tracks able to get a show in the weekend of May 7-19 was Casino Speedway in Watertown, South Dakota. Todd Good and his large staff of workers spent the better part of two days pounding and packing the racing surface at the high-banked quarter mile on the shores of Lake Kampeska. While their optimism was high, they really weren’t sure they’d race until early Sunday morning. With the strong winds that began to increase as the day progressed — blowing directly into the grandstand — the decision was made to move the racing program up by 90 minutes, with a 5 p.m. start scheduled. Though Good knows his crowd far better than I, my belief is that a 5 p.m. start every week would not be a bad thing. One thing I like about Sunday tracks like Proctor and Granite City is that they start early on Sunday, thus getting done some nights before the sun sets. That makes Monday morning much easier to tolerate.

Despite working with the heavy equipment right up until the appointed hour, they did drop the first green flag of 2025 right at 5 p.m. Having lost their scheduled opener due to bad weather a week earlier, I'm sure there was even more urgency to try and get the season started. And, despite the fact the fans on hand had to bundle up like they were attending snowmobile races, the loyal crowd showed up in nice numbers. It was not a full house, but certainly a good one given the circumstances.

It was also an example of social media being used positively. Back in the day, a start-time change simply could not have been done effectively as it was on Sunday.

Have I got a story for you folks! I’m anointing Trey Hess as the craziest man in all of WISSOTA. Seeing him pull into the pits at Casino was not too surprising, given the fact he has raced at virtually every Street Stock race offered so far.

But the story of his journey to Watertown is so much more. On Wednesday of this week, Trey traveled from his home in Grand Forks, North Dakota to race at Thunder City Speedway. That is about an eight-hour drive, and he lost an hour when he crossed to Thunder Bay, which is on Eastern Standard Time. From Thunder Bay, he then drove to Willmar, Minnesota with plans to race at KRA Speedway, another seven hours. Just as he got into Willmar, they cancelled. Checking the weather forecast for the weekend in our area, he then made an executive decision to head west, far west, to catch some racing out there. He took off for Billings, Montana and the Big Sky Speedway, an 11-hour drive, where they were hosting a doubleheader of racing on Friday and Saturday. He scored a win and a third-place finish there for his efforts. But the weekend was not over yet.

He then drove back overnight from Billings to Watertown, a 10-hour drive, and won the feature at Casino on Sunday night. So in the course of five days, he drove 36 hours just to race, and raced in three different time zones!

And, once the final checkered was waved over his car at Casino, he still had a three-hour drive home back to Grand Forks. Unbelievable. At the banquet in November, he certainly should qualify for a large gas card.

Making not only his first start of the weekend and year, but also of his life, was Carter Frost, racing in the Mid Mod division. He had four years of experience racing in enduros but never any real racing experience otherwise. His first night was spent fighting mechanical issues. He broke something in the rear end in both his heat and the feature race, ending the night on the bad end of the wrecker.

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