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William Lund’s Super Stock made a very bad banging noise on the last lap of his heat and he rolled across the finish line not under power, so we will have to see on Thursday just how bad things were.

Danny Vang was practicing with a Midwest Mod on Tuesday night and the plan was for him to make his first Midwest Mod start in quite a few years either on Thursday or Friday. However, broken pieces were left behind the car after a practice session and the car needed a push to the pits, so we will have to see whether the initial plan has been changed. The car was not seen on Wednesday in the pits; it was in the box and not being worked on.

It was about 9:30 p.m. when officials finally threw in the towel and called the rest of the show.

Thursday, September 17

After the rainout partway through the Wednesday night program, Thursday provided a very nice day for one of the longest programs I sat through in quite some time. You remember races like this, or at least parts of my anatomy do, for sure!

It also may have been the first time I saw portions of three individual race programs, marking the first triple in my history. There have been lots of doubles but never before can I remember a triple program.

I hope there never is another one!

Racing resumed at 11 a.m. on Thursday morning to complete the remaining parts of Wednesday night’s program.

The track itself was a subject to watch, as it changed several times over the course of the long day. Starting from heavy and very fast, the afternoon sun baked it out quickly and before the leftover features were completely made up, it locked down and became tough to pass on for a couple of the last features. Extensive work at various times caused it to change again and despite all the laps and abuse from hundred of Hoosiers pounding it, it was a good track for racing, more often than not. It was also a little choppy early on, but that worked out over the course of the afternoon, too.

A pair of Modified heats, the Street Stock heats and the five feature races from Wednesday were left to run, before we could then move on to the regularly scheduled show.

There were way too many feature races run during the course of the morning, afternoon, evening and then early morning once again to detail here, as our fine ATD writers will detail, but here are a few of the highlights.

Jason VandeKamp, on a roll here in the late season, drove to victory in the first Qualifying Feature of the week, taking the lead in the MidMod feature from Corey Storck just at the halfway point of the race. Landyn Randt drove up from the third row to secure second late in the race, with Reise Stenberg third. The option for all qualified drivers to turn down their finishing spot with the top eight locked in to the main event on Saturday continued this year. In this particular race, both Jake Smith and Shane Sabraski opted to race again later in the day.

Speaking of Sabraski, his quest to put all four of his cars (he is running a Midwest Mod this week as well) in the main events started with the Super Stocks. A late-race pass on Dexton Koch gave him the win. Actually, he didn’t have to physically make the pass, as a late battle on a restart between Koch and Denis Czech ended with contact. Czech went to the tail while Koch went off on the hook. This gave Sabraski the lead with only three laps to go and he drove on for the win. Dalton Carlson had a great run for second with Trevor Nelson third. All eight drivers opted to keep their spots and rest easy until Saturday night.

The Late Model feature was double important. Not only was it the chance to qualify for the inside eight rows for Saturday, it was also the final Structural Buildings Challenge Series race of the year. In the championship hunt, Kevin Burdick sought to fight off Dave Mass and Sabraski to get his first Challenge Series title.

As for the feature itself, it was dominated by Cole Searing, who led from start to finish in a race that had seven yellows, mostly for spins. There was some incredibly hard driving going on; the Late Model drivers have really been putting on a show so far this week. Johnny Broking made a great drive up through the pack, coming from 14th to grab second following the last restart, with Ty Giles finishing third.

As for the point battle, Burdick prevailed when he drove to a solid 10th-place finish. Sabraski finished just two spots ahead of him, not enough to take away the title. Mass finished behind him.

Congrats to Burdick, as this title is a win for the so-called “little guys” in the sport. Burdick is not a hugely funded team like some of his competitors; he travels to the races in an open trailer pulled by a well used motorhome but he races hard and fast and has done a great job of keeping his nose clean. Despite often not qualifying the best, he makes drive after drive up through the field to secure very good finishes. He has proven he is more than qualified to drive a Late Model and be successful at it.

Lots of drivers opted out of their finish in this race with Dan Ebert, Tyler Peterson, Sabraski, Burdick, Jeff Provinzino and Mass all wanting more, but this allowed several drivers who had not expected it the opportunity to move directly in the Saturday night show.

Dusty Bitzan is probably not well known around certain parts of WISSOTA, simply because he does not travel a lot. He is very fast when it comes to racing here and at Viking Speedway and he blitzed the Modified field, leading from start to finish. He got the jump on Blake Adams, who seemed primed to collect a big point night, and then drove away from the field in a race stopped only once for debris on the track.

Cade Dillard put Tim Thomas’ ride solidly in the Saturday night field. He finished second with Don Eischens getting a strong third-place finish. Opting to try again on Thursday were TPO, Johnny Broking, Adams and Travis Saurer.

The key call here was on the initial start, where Adams was called for a jump start and sent back a row. This gave Bitzan the break he needed, and he then took care of things for the rest of the race.

The track was getting dry and slick by the time the Street Stocks hit the track for the final event of the makeup racing and they had a dickens of a time keeping their cars pointed in the proper direction. Their feature was a laborious one to watch, with seven yellows to slow the action. Levi Randt led from start to finish and made a great opening lap move to split Layla Chaplin and Cail Tinker. After that, it was just a matter of not screwing up with all the yellow-flag induced restarts.

Randt made a bold decision after the feature as he opted to throw away the pole and come back and race on Thursday, a big gamble to say the least. This will give Kyle Dykhoff the pole position on Saturday night. Kasey Ussatis and Andrew Hanson were next in line after apparent third-place finisher Mark Blom was disqualified.

There was plenty of action in the Street Stock pit with Colten Schuler executing the first observed motor change. We also saw one of the most violent flips in quite some time when Ethan Iiams was turned on the back chute and barrel rolled five or six times. Fortunately, he was not hurt but there was not much left of his race car.

This wrapped up things for the remaining portion of the Wednesday night show. Don Shaw and his crew had already been taxed to get the track ready for the early start, and a huge pile of what had formerly been the top surface of the race track sat in the infield, which I have now nicknamed Don’s Mountain. Despite the hours of labor already spent getting and keeping the track in racing shape, the morning program started right at the advertising 11 a.m. start.

Drivers signed in for the Thursday night portion of the show numbered 242.

An additional 19 drivers signed in to race on Thursday who weren’t on hand previously.

Despite all the earlier racing and the massive track prep that had to be done at the end of the afternoon show, the regularly scheduled program for Thursday started less than a half hour later than the original advertised time. This was quite remarkable, given all the moving pieces that had to come together to make this massive event work.

It was a good track all night with plenty of racing room and plenty of passing and the speed was still there, a staple that seems to be consistent at I-94.

I must say that one thing this event begs for, administratively speaking, is the implementation of a one-spin rule. There have been far too many yellow flags for single car spins, where the driver anchors the brake and waits for the yellow to wave and then drives away. It leaves us in the grandstand to grind our teeth and mutter obscenities under our breath — we all came to see green flag, nonstop racing, not a bunch of yellow-induced restarts. It slows down the program considerably. The argument against doing this is that drivers come a long way and deserve multiple chances to race. However, they get so many opportunities to qualify during the week, sometimes for the betterment of the event you must put your foot down.

Again, multiple heat races were held for all classes, with just the top 24 in passing points moving on to run the Qualifying Features. The running order was changed up for Thursday night and I believe that was to be expected for the duration of the event.

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