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Midwest Mods ran their feature first and after “Cowboy” Shane Howell led the opening lap, it was all Shane Sabraski after that. Sabraski is migrating back to the old days of his racing, as he is now racing multiple cars to the extreme. It seemed that the appearance of the Midwest Mod a few weeks ago was just an afterthought and perhaps a venue for his daughter to start racing but now it seems like they are racing that car hard and seriously. In his biggest years of collecting feature wins, he ran three cars, with the Modified the top level car. Now he is racing four classes, something he didn’t do even back then. If he is able to put all four cars in the feature race Saturday, I’m guessing that will be another record he will have set. So far, the Modified is the only one he is struggling getting in, which is a bit of a surprise. His Midwest Mod performance on Thursday was very impressive. Nate Reinke finished second and Wyatt Boyum, who hasn’t raced too much this year, did a great job getting third. Again, there were a couple drivers opting out of their spots, with both Jake Smith and Blake Adams seeking better starting positions and more national points.

Adams then put on one of the more impressive runs of the night in the Modified class, only to have the whole thing come undone with a DQ following the checkered flag. Adams started 10th and that’s pretty far back to make a winning run, especially considering the quality of the fields in all classes. However, he got up on the cushion and made it work, taking over the lead on lap nine. After that, he ran away from the pack, despite several late yellows that slowed the race and bunched the field.

Then, in victory lane, a crew member appeared on the scene, despite warnings each day at the driver’s meeting that crew members couldn’t be present in victory lane.

What had been one of his finest drives to a win was all for naught due to the mistake of the crew member. Adams was disqualified, which elevated Mike Stearns to the victory with Brady Gerdes and Bryce Sward next in line. This was a difficult situation for all involved, but rules are rules. Brandon Dolman and Johnny Broking opted out of their finishes.

The Late Models were on point once again as their feature race was a dandy. Sam Mars took the lead with only three laps to go and drove on for the win. This was a nonstop 20-lap race and boy, was it interesting. There was a lot of passing, there were wild slide jobs and cross overs, and it was one of the highlights so far this week.

Mars came from the fourth row and used the cushion to march forward and his battle right down to the wire with Cody Overton was thrilling. Overton settled for second with Zach Johnson having a fine run of his own to finish third. Only one driver in the 24-car field failed to finish and for once, everybody who finished in the top eight took their spots for Saturday night.

Justin Vogel lit a fire under the crowd with his performance in the Street Stock feature. He led the opening lap but was then passed by Parker Anderson for the lead. As always, Vogel was pounding the cushion; sometimes it worked and other times, not so much. For awhile on Thursday, it seemed to be a bad choice, as he drifted back to third and Cole Greseth drove by him.

But he continued to work that line and near the halfway point he started to make it work, slowly climbing back into the race as he passed Greseth and then began to close on Anderson.

Anderson’s car seemed to get tight in the corners and he was having some trouble making it turn and Vogel reeled him in, making the winning pass with five laps to go. Anderson drove back as hard as he could, trying to regain the lead but Vogel was just a bit quicker and took the win. Only Mike Jans opted out of his starting spot.

Dylan Nelson had earlier issues with mechanical problems this week, but those went away as he drove past the Super Stock field and led from start to finish to take the win. Austin Niemeyer had a fine run, as he fought off and then drove away from Dexton Koch to finish second. Thus, the Thursday night program was done. And so, we thought, were we.

However, at some point during the evening a decision was made to run as much of Friday’s program as possible on Thursday night, because of the unsettled weather expected on Friday.

For those fans on hand Thursday, they got a bonus as they ended up seeing half of Friday’s program for free. The plan was to get as much done as possible and once they got rolling with the Friday heats, they just kept their foot to the floor and all 22 heat races were completed.

Some track prep after the finish of the Thursday program led to a starting time of 11:34 p.m. with the final checkered flag of the night (morning) flying at just before 2 a.m.

The good news was that now only the five Qualifying Features were left, with the hope they could be squeezed in at some point on Friday or prior to the Last Chance races on Saturday.

The downside was that with the Friday qualifying moved up to late Thursday, there was no chance for any late-arriving drivers to just show up on Friday and attempt to qualify for the main events. This has been something attempted and done before.

The final car counts for the 100 were now locked in. With one more Super Stock in the lineup for Friday’s heats, the final figure shows 63 Streets, 79 Midwest Mods, 51 Supers, 45 Mods and 51 Late Models, making for a total of 288 teams that raced this week. These are my figures but should be pretty accurate. The final numbers remained down across the board but just slightly.

For some reason, it has been a rough week concerning flips. Five drivers rolled over so far through the Thursday night program. Three have been in the Street Stocks and two in the Midwest Mods. The early morning heats for Friday’s show had another hard Street Stock flip as well. One of the more difficult instances was for Matt Schow. After he flipped earlier this week, he got his car fixed, only to have it wiped out once again during the last set of heats in the wee hours.

Saturday, September 19

Saturday dawned following Friday’s expected washout, and the Qualifying Features for Friday’s program were first on the program.

In retrospect, the decision to keep racing into the wee hours of the morning on Friday and get the heats done was the smartest decision made by the WISSOTA board all week.

With a hoped-for starting time of 4 p.m. for the Championship Features, the five remaining Qualifying Feature races from Friday, determining the middle row for the big show later on Saturday, also determined who had to run a Last Chance Race later in the day prior to the Championship Features.

The real heroes for this week are really two fold. The track prep crew, who have used all their heavy equipment to get this race track in decent racing shape, did so despite all the adversity thrown at them from Mother Nature. The number of hours they have put in makes me tired just to think about it and there is no way they can possibly be reimbursed at the level they deserve. I just want to thank them for their efforts, as without them, we would all be home by now trying to come up with something to do.

The second group is the workers involved behind the scenes. From the ticket takers to the kitchen crew to security and all the other people needed to make this event happen, thank you for keeping things going.

And we can’t forget the WISSOTA board and the other folks who administer this event. This is a nonprofit organization that runs this event and there are very few folks who are salaried, with many donating long hours to keep racing alive in this part of the world — and that’s not an easy thing to do these days. They get little thanks and lots of grief (I’m strong on the second part and trying to work hard on bettering my first part). Thanks for your time and efforts.

And now, on to the show. It was pointed out to me that again, I can’t count. In discussing the number of rollovers this week, I forgot to include the hard flip taken by Aaron Johnson in Challenge Series action earlier this week (likely something he would like to forget, too!) and the total number of flips so far was seven, including four Street Stocks, two Midwest Mods and one Late Model. Not to spoil the plot, but thankfully there were no more on Championship Saturday.

Running nearly an hour late, but lucky to do so even by that time, at 11:55 a.m. the first of five feature races from Friday night hit the track. By this time Mountain Don was about a third bigger and they will have quite the job ahead to put the racing surface back together. FYE still has one more big show coming yet in October at I-94 this year that promises to be another big event.

They started right out with the Modifieds, who got to play on a heavy, fast track. In fact, it was so heavy the Mods seemed a bit slow when they started their feature race. It didn’t take long for them to kick up the dirt though and they widened out the surface quickly. There were some dips in the track that persisted all day, likely due to the huge amount of dirt that was bladed and skimmed off the track. I think it left some spots a bit lower than others.

Blake Adams started on the pole and led all 20 laps for the apparent win. He had an excellent battle early with Travis Saurer, who refused to let him get away. Eventually Adams did just that, leaving Saurer to battle with Brock Gronwold for second.

I say apparent because for the second time this week, Adams had his picture taken as a feature winner, only to have that honor taken away from him. This might be a WISSOTA record to lose two feature wins during the same weekend but if so, a dubious one at best. The tech shed that found something wrong on their car and I’m no technical person, so I can’t even debate the merits of whether they were wrong or not. I will say it is just so discouraging to watch a good race on the track and then have it taken away afterward. Rules are rules, but one would think that with the multitude of times this car has been through tech, there wouldn’t be an issue. I understand what was ruled illegal was an adjustable item and if so, then I suppose it could be true. I guess in this day and age, teams are often walking a fine line on legal or not as they seek the racing advantage and rolling the dice, so to speak.

Even The Iron Man, Shane Sabraski, was found to be illegal this week during a Qualifying Feature, so I guess there is no one above walking that fine line between legal and illegal.

In any event, the “fun meter” was pegged for this team in Fergus and even though Adams had the pole for a Qualifying Feature in the Midwest Mods, they loaded up and headed home, perhaps to watch “The Queens” on TV and forget about racing for a few days.

The disqualification moved Gronwold, who had out-fought Saurer for second, to the winning position. Saurer was then second with the top eight, moving on to the big show later.

After the bitterness of this race washed away, the Street Stocks came out and brightened things up a bit with Kammron Rose winning his first-ever feature as he held off Levi Randt and Alex Grinager for the honors. It’s not often one seems a driver win his first-ever feature at the 100 so that will certainly be a memorable thing for this team. The race itself was a tedious one, with seven yellows. It doesn’t take long for a race track to dry out in day time racing, even if it has been rained on for a full day and the sun isn’t shining. That’s why day time racing is so frowned upon. Rose led the whole race but was under the gun constantly.

The Super Stock feature made the local fans happy when William Lund, from just up the road, took over the lead on the second lap and then held off a charging Denis Czech and Brandon Duellman to take the win. With Supers not racing here weekly, Lund doesn’t get to race here that often. Viking is his home operation, but he did fine job once he got past R.C. Geiss for the lead.

Dan Ebert has picked up quite a following recently, as I guess area fans consider him their champion. He fights the national driving stars on a weekly basis, and no one from this area has done that for quite a while.

In any event, he brought a roar from the crowd when he passed Tyler Peterson with just two laps to go to win the Late Model Qualifying Feature. Peterson led from the start with Ebert battling with his teammate Dexton Koch for second. Ebert actually slipped back to fourth at the halfway point before he made his late charge to take the win.

The Midwest Mods closed out the feature racing action in a nonstop main event. Jake Smith started on the pole and led all laps to take a relatively easy win. Brennan Weight finished second with Jamie Davis third and again, the top eight moved directly to the Championship Feature.

After some quick track prep, the decision was made to move directly into the Last Chance Qualifiers for all five classes. Some classes had only one race, some had two and the Midwest Mods had three.

For the first time all week, we started to see a number of “no shows” as drivers scratched out of their races for various reasons. Some headed home when the rains continued all day Friday while others had breakdowns and wrecks they couldn’t fix in time.

When those eight races were completed, suddenly it was Saturday night and Championship night. Time for more track prep, another hot dog and for feature racing to begin.

The feature field drivers were locked in, with 33 drivers starting each feature, except for the Street Stocks where there was one scratch. The last three drivers in each feature had the highest passing points of those not in the show, different from last year and years past when all drivers that had raced all nights had a lucky drawing for the last three spots. This seemed more fair and rewarding to those drivers that had more success but just not quite enough to make the show.

The crowds seem to have been good for the preceding evening’s shows, especially given the weather conditions and the goofy race schedule. The crowd for Saturday night’s feature races was a dandy and appreciated by all. After all, it’s the drivers’ point fund where the profits from this race go so the more fans in the stands, the more WISSOTA can pay out at the annual banquet.

The fans were dipping into their pockets also with the 50/50 Split the Pot winner taking home $20,570 dollars, the biggest winner of the weekend on either side of the track.

The WISSOTA Late Model Challenge Series winner and rookie of the year were both honored, with Kevin Burdick and Dexton Koch on center stage to receive their honors. This was an emotional moment for many, based on the circumstances of this year. Ron Krog also spoke briefly in memory of Scott Engfer, as many of us in the crowd tried to put the thoughts of that dark day last year behind us. It was overall a very nice presentation with Scott Tiefs at his best throughout.

And then it was time to go feature racing. The Super Stocks were the first class to run their main event and it wouldn’t be a typical 100 without Shane Sabraski winning at least one feature race. This year it was the Super Stock main that he dominated.

He led all 40 laps after starting on the inside pole. At various times he had to fight off Dylan Nelson, Dexton Koch and Austin Niemeyer, who took turns running second, but he was never severely challenged by any of them.

His biggest challenge was the many restarts that the race had with seven yellows and nearly half the starting field did not finish the feature. Sabraski is hoping to harvest as many points as he can in some of these races, as he will be missing some Saturday events in the coming weeks due to football.

At the finish Koch took second with Nelson, R.C. Geiss and Niemeyer completing the top five.

The Modified feature was the first of two mains won by outsiders that dropped in for the 100. Cade Dillard drove the new car he had built for the Thomas racing team out of West Fargo. He posted a come-from-behind win as he passed longtime race leader Travis Saurer on lap 35, and then pulled away over the final five laps to take the win.

This race was a grind; there were only three yellows and the last 30 laps ran green. Saurer passed Mike Stearns, who led the first five laps and then had showed the way until Dillard picked up the pace in the late going and was able to drive past Saurer to collect the win.

Dillard, who races and builds race cars for a living, ran in the top five for most of the race, biding his time. When the halfway point came he was up to third and then seemed to pick up the pace at the end, driving by Saurer, who simply couldn’t keep up with him.

Johnny Broking, driving his father’s car, made a strong run of his own, coming from the middle of the fourth row to pass Saurer near the end and take second. Saurer hung on for third ahead of Ryan Gierke and Joe Thomas.

The Street Stock feature was a great race with a battle for the lead that was outstanding. Unfortunately, a disappointing turn of events in the tech shed soured the entire event, at least from my perspective.

Kyle Dykhoff took the early lead ahead of Levi Randt and Parker Anderson. Keith Tourville was on the move and soon it was a four-driver battle for the lead. Tourville was up to second by the halfway point of the race with Anderson, Randt and Cole Greseth close behind.

A long period of more than 20 green flag laps during the race proved to give everyone a chance to run with the leaders and between laps 15 and 20, the lead changed hands three different times among Dykhoff, Tourville and Anderson. On lap 26, Anderson drove past Tourville to take over the lead. The restart found Randt turned by Dykhoff with the yellow waving once again and Randt returned to his spot while Dykhoff called it a night.

The last three laps were a great battle between the three and at the finish it was Anderson over Randt and Tourville.

The post-race ceremony was held and then later the news was revealed that Anderson had failed tech inspection, which elevated Randt to the win. Somehow, a race car that had every bolt and nut inspected after he won the Little Dream a little over a month ago and then passed both pre-race inspection and post-race inspection after races earlier this week, was suddenly found to have something wrong. Something just is not right here, that’s all I’m going to say.

After the news was broken, at the end of the night the new adjusted top five came back out to victory lane for photos with the corrected top five including Randt, Tourville, Justin Vogel, Eric Riley and Greg Jose, who rolled the dice and entered the race late yet made it work. Jose started 25th on the grid.

The Late Model feature was a wild one and certainly one that kept everyone’s attention for the whole 50 laps. Cole Searing was the early lead and set a hot pace as Dan Ebert, Sam Mars and Cody Overton all fought to keep up with him. A bad crash with six laps completed left the cars of Jayson Good and Charlie Olsen looking rough.

Searing continued as the leader until lap 13 when Ebert, who had picked up the pace, drove by him for the lead. For much of the rest of the race, Ebert continued as the leader with Overton and Mars chasing him. Mars was really good in traffic and twice he was about to gain when the yellow stopped his efforts.

The final stoppage set up a 12-lap sprint to the finish. Ebert pulled away again but was soon battling heavy traffic. Overton and Mars continued to battle for second when the unthinkable happened to Ebert. He got tied up with a slower car exiting turn four and despite making a great save and not spinning out, by the time he got going again he had dropped to third with Overton holding off the last second attempts from Mars for the win.

Ebert settled for third with Zach Johnson and Kevin Burdick rounding out the top five. Just as he did all season, Burdick drove smartly, stayed out of trouble and then at the end came on after starting eighteenth.

For Overton it was a surprise win, while it was heart break for Ebert, who handled himself well. Mars was a frustrated second, with opportunities just not going his way.

It marked the second feature win by an interloper, not handled well by me, but at least he was driving a car owned by a longtime WISSOTA racer who would be driving himself if he could.

The evening finale was the Midwest Mod feature and this race was probably dominated by a single driver as much as Sabraski did in the Super Stocks. Jake Smith started in the middle of the front row and led all 35 laps, with only token pressure for the most part by Jason Vandekamp. A couple of times Vandy did get close enough to provide a challenge but Smith was smooth, held his line and then pulled away again at the end.

For a time it appeared that Sabraski was going to pull off another win as he moved in on the top two but then, after a mid-race restart where he had moved up to second, he seemed to not be as quick after that and he slipped back to third where he stayed. Landyn Randt and Tony Leiker, who had been relatively quiet all week, completed the top five.

Drivers who came into this week’s 100 locked in point battles for national titles raced for both wins and to advance their causes but looking through the finishes, I don’t see where anyone changed things much. Heading on into the later part of September, things seem to stand pretty much where they were. Drivers from these teams now need to plan their strategy on where and when they will race in the coming weeks, factoring of course the weather and there their competition races in their plans. Right now I think everyone needs a few days break after the intense week that this is.

Racing was completed at around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, which was certainly acceptable and far earlier than some years. Considering all that everyone had to endure and tolerate, the week’s worth of racing came off much better than anyone could have expected or hoped.

Thanks to everyone who played a part in this week for their work and dedication and now, get some rest!