5-27 Page 24
Finally we got our racing season off to a start, going from Grand Rapids Speedway to ABC Raceway on Saturday night, with a stop at our own Gondik Law Speedway on Friday night for our postponed season opener.
On Thursday night we headed off to the Grand Rapids Speedway. Our friend Dennis McCauley drove and I kept him awake on the round trip!
It was a great day when we got to the speedway. We entered and Dennis got me settled in my usual seat in the grandstands. It was sort of a wasted trip for Dennis, as we were unaware that their opener would not include WISSOTA Super Stocks. Dennis, of course, operates the Fastlane Motorsports WISSOTA Super Stock Series. The Supers run for a nice payday and the series pays well throughout for the final standings. I believe Dennis said this would be the 11th season for the series.
After the races I managed to create a spectacle of my own, as I managed to fall down the last couple of grandstand steps landing on my back on the walkway. Good thing I was able to right myself with the help of Dennis. I was not seriously injured, just shaken up a bit.
To get to the racing, the track was quite dry and produced something of a dust storm during the features, but not too bad.
But onto the actual racing ... in the Hornet division, Russell Kiker, Jr. swept the division over Brady Fosso. Kiker started from the outside of the front row and Fosso came from the ninth starting spot. Tristen McLynn, Zeb Graves and Mikayla LaBarge rounded out the top five.
It was also a sweep in the WISSOTA Mods for Shane Sabraski. He worked from the third starting spot in the main event and raced to victory over Blake Adams in second, followed by Bob Broking, Jeff Wood and Tyler Kintner in the top five.
Kevin Burdick topped the WISSOTA Late Model feature over Billy Kendall, Shane Sabraski and Jeff Provinzino.
It was a good night of racing at GRS, only ruined by my header off the grandstands. I can tell you that at 83 years old, the flip/flop was not that entertaining for me!
We headed home after leaving the track much earlier than I'm used to and got home around 11 p.m. That gave me a lot of time to administer my back pain and get some sleep.
Friday we headed to the opening night at Gondik Law Speedway. We traversed about a total of three miles to the speedway where I started my driving career in 1971 in a stock car. (It ended in 1989 in an earlier version of a WISSOTA Modified.)
We had a nice car count for the opener with 19 Late Models, 16 Super Stocks, 11 Pure Stocks, 14 Renegade Sprints (Non Winged) and nine Hornets.
The feature was won by a very tenacious outside polesitter Dave Flynn, who had to work hard to keep Kevin Burdick at bay. Billy Kendall, Johnny Broking and Pat Doar finished in the top five.
In the WISSOTA Super Stocks, Curt Myers stayed ahead of a competitive Andy Grymala for the win.
Aaron Bernick had a good run in the WISSOTA Pure Stocks. Derek Ament was second, and Trevor Treviranus was third. Eric Crosby and Shane Basnina rounded out the top five.
Finally, in the Hornet division, the feature was won by Nikota Larson ahead of Carson Gotelaere, Nathan Penney, Brady Fosso and Tim Larson.
Kudos go to the track prep crew as the track was in great shape and, as Super Stock winner Curt Myers said, there was “hardly a ripple” in the track. I have to say it's almost very unusual to find a “Lake Superior Clay” track so wonderful for the first race of the season.
I know this won't happen much this year, but Joanne and I were home every night this weekend before midnight, though it was close coming from ABC Raceway in Ashland.
Speaking of Ashland, the first night of racing there proved to be exciting and pretty smooth. The track was, like Superior’s, smooth and fast!
On hand were around 60 cars for a cool opening night, including 12 Mods, 10 Pure Stocks, 14 Supers, 13 Midwest Mods and 11 Sixes.
In the Midwest Mods, Paul Ripley led all the way from the pole for the win. Simpson and Vernon finished second and third ahead of fourth-place Marcus Dunbar.
Steve Stuart swept the WISSOTA Super Stocks. Terran Spacek finished second ahead of Matt Deragon, Dalton Truchon, and Shawn McFadden in the top five.
It was another typical Saturday night racing at ABC Raceway. We have our same seats a couple rows down from the top. We have new seats we bring with us that work perfectly. Hopefully it will warm up soon as I'm sort of bummed at the cool weather.
We will have our usual racing venues next weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to move without much pain, as my back pain from my GRS fall clears up.
On a personal note, I have had a lot of trouble with my left eye recently. I found out a while ago that I have what amounts to a plugged drain in my left eye that gives me blurred vision and makes my right eye work harder. Hopefully my vision will clear up and I can get back to driving, something I haven't been able to do with blurred vision for a good while.
More from here on the tundra next time, I hope!