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Rice Lake suffers sixth rainout of the season after Saturday morning deluge

By Ed Reichert

RICE LAKE, WI (August 16) – A deluge of rain Saturday morning flooded out Rice Lake Speedway, with water halfway up the turns on the race track and the infield completely flooded. The races had to be cancelled, ending the regular season on a wet note. The rainout was the sixth of the season in what has been a weather-plagued 2025 at the raceway.

Next up on the speedway schedule is season championship night, scheduled for this coming Saturday night, August 23. All five classes that regularly race at the speedway will be in action on Saturday. All drivers will draw a number for their heat races, just like normal, but those drivers who make the redraw from their heats will be lined straight up by points earned during the 2025 racing season. The other heat race finishers will be lined up directly behind them. Season champions will be the feature winners in all five classes.

The 2025 Hall of Fame induction ceremony will also be held next Saturday. Darwin Brown, Dave Havel, Rick Kurshinsky and the late Brent Laursen are the honorees for this year.

Start time is 6 p.m. on Saturday.

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With the final points race rained out, the 2025 speedway point standings have been finalized. Winners include Rob Grabon in the Pure Stocks, Danny Richards in the Street Stocks, Blake Adams in the the Midwest Modifieds and Modifieds, and Leslie Leu in the Super Stocks.

Grabon, who finished 16 points ahead of last year's titleist Bob Wahlstrom, won his first-ever point title at the track.

Richards, who beat his son Cole by 24 points, won his third-straight point title at the track. This is the second time Cole has finished in second behind Danny.

Leu won his first-ever Super Stock title at Rice Lake, edging out Alex Myers by 15 points. Leu has been close in previous years but this year marked his first-ever title.

It was a spectacular year for Adams. He became only the second driver in track history to win both the Midwest Modified and Modified point titles the same year; his father Kevin pulled off the same feat back in 2019. Blake is also the only rookie driver ever to win the Modified point title at the speedway. As best as can be determined, he is the only rookie driver in speedway history to win a point title in his first year.

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Looking ahead to the end of the month, the second annual Dairyland Dash will be held at the speedway on Saturday, August 30, and Sunday, August 31. Five WISSOTA classes will be in action including the Pure Stocks, Street Stocks, Midwest Modifieds, Super Stocks and Modifieds. The USRA Late Models will also be racing that weekend, with all six classes running full racing programs on both Saturday and Sunday.

Race fans and teams should be watching the speedway website and social media in the coming days for series of announcements about this event including the start times, payoff, sponsor announcements and special bonus contingincies and other awards that will be offered for that weekend.