9-23 Page 19

I should have expected this. After such nice weather overall last week for the 100, I should have known that this weekend was going to be challenging, for lack of a better term to use. But with a lot of special events slated, a lot of race tracks struggled with the weather, sending promoters and track owners, drivers and crews and fans alike all tearing their hair out as they tried to figure out just which tracks were going to luck out.

One of the long-standing race specials in the Midwest is the annual Punky Manor Challenge of Champions at Red Cedar Speedway in Menomonie, WI. The event is full of tradition and to lose it entirely is a tough pill to swallow for the Red Cedar Racing Association, for both emotional and financial reasons, because it’s annually a significant source of revenue for the nonprofit club.

What a lousy way for Tom Birthman to wrap up his career at Red Cedar. Birthman, a member of the Red Cedar Speedway Hall of Fame, is in his 50th year of running the scales at Red Cedar and had told me that he would be retiring after this weekend. He was robbed from doing his duties there one last time.

Folks like him who volunteer their time are the primary reason that club-run tracks survive.

Birthman told me that he has never sat in the spectator grandstand in 50 years at Red Cedar so he just might try that out next year at some point. But I think he will probably be found at the picnic tables back by the pit concession stand before the races, having the weekly “koffee klatch” with the other track workers before they head out to do their weekly assigned tasks.

Casino Speedway was forced to cancel its entire weekend as well, and that amounted to their ninth rainout of 2025. It's tough to try and make a buck or even keep the place open when you get rained out and have zero income that many times. It has been a brutal year for race tracks in the Midwest. Many others this weekend either had to cancel, postpone or modify their plans.

Saturday, September 20

I ended up heading to round one of the Piston Cup at Granite City Motor Park in Sauk Rapids, MN. Like most other tracks, GCMP changed its schedule for the weekend and moved back the opening round to Saturday, September 20 after the weatherman promised lots of rain on Friday.

The GCMP staff had their hands full getting an eight-class program completed.

Under threatening skies, race teams pulled in from a wide area and there was a very unpredictable assortment of drivers on hand.

A light shower after the pits opened didn’t hurt anything, but during the first Super Stock heat, it rained harder and got everything wet.

They rolled equipment out and packed even as the rain continued to fall. It took a long time and several times it seemed that the track had been lost, but in the end the track crew won out.

The rain delay was more than two hours and the race schedule was completely messed up. They improvised on the fly by changing the racing order and trying to get as many races completed as they could before their midnight curfew. Four of the eight features were completed and the rest were left to be run on Sunday afternoon before the second half of the show began. Sunday had been a planned raindate.

The Late Model portion of the event was an open affair, because it had been organized too late to gain sanctioning, so there were WISSOTA Late Models, USRA Late Models and Gen X Late Models all together. Dave Mass won the feature after an exciting battle with Jeff Provinzino and Shane Sabraski, who came back to Granite City after racing in Thunder Bay, ON Friday. Dexton Koch also came back after racing one day north of the border.

Perhaps Sabraski came back with hopes of winning his 1,000th feature race at the same track where he won his first. Back then, it was called Golden Spike Speedway. But he’s also been locked in two tight battles for national points in both the Super Stocks and Modifieds and a home-court advantage is nothing to sneeze at.

All those folks in the stands Saturday who came to watch Sabraski win No. 1,000 went home disappointed, though. In the Late Models he got a flat tire after banging into the wall and in the Super Stock feature, he was chasing Dylan Kromschroeder for the lead when he nailed one of the inside marker tires, which messed up his steering. He then tried to fight through that and hold on to second, but instead got into Koch on the last lap and took both of them out. It was not his most shining night. However, he still had four more chances to get that historic win.

One thousand wins will be a remarkable achievement for someone so young. Wouldn't you think that the national racing media would be all over this? However, I have heard no mention of this between all the print and online media sources.

I think some are skeptical that the numbers are accurate. And even to me, it does seem like a lot of feature wins for someone still in his 40s. I have tried to get some documentation to send to the critics from the East Coast to make them believe and give Sabraski his due credit, but I have to admit I don’t have all the hard evidence. I also don’t have any reason to believe the numbers aren’t accurate. We are talking about historic numbers that would put Sabraski in rare air with some of the biggest names who ever raced. It sure would be nice to see him get that credit, but the “East Coast” bias that exists does need to be shown proof.

Of the three WISSOTA-sanctioned feature races that were completed, there were some dandy battles. In the Street Stock feature Jim Gullikson, still hot after his WISSOTA 100 win, led from start to finish but the win was far from easy. A late yellow allowed Tommy Pogones to get alongside Gullikson and they raced extremely hard, side by side for several laps. Somehow, Gullikson fought off Pogones and went on for the win with Trey Hess third.

By the way, Hess told me that his plans to move up next year have been likely scuttled and he will be back as a working stiff, limiting his racing to local tracks much more and likely no weekly trips to Thunder Bay.

In a big field of Midwest Modifieds, Blake Adams fought off challenges from Joey Jensen to get the win. The race had only one yellow, and that was with two laps to go, so the lapped traffic was horrendous but Adams did a great job of navigating around the congested track.

There were national point implications because Jensen and Tyler Vernon have been battling for the national title. Vernon stayed in Canada for the weekend while Jensen chose Granite City. I think he needed a feature win to influence the points.

Two of the three drivers battling for the national title in the Super Stock points were also on hand: Sabraski and Koch. Ironically, they ended up in the same crash on the last lap of the feature.

Dylan Kromschroeder threw a wrench into their plans with a stirring drive to get the win. He had intense pressure from Sabraski and Koch but never made a bobble and certainly deserved the win. Sabraski nailed the turn four marker tire late and then he and Koch crashed together on the last lap. Even though Kromschroeder saw the checkered flag, for some reason track officials felt the need to back up the race and run a single lap.

That almost cost Kromschroeder the win, as Denis Czech made a great move on the final lap and got up alongside the leader. Only a strong move off the final corner saved the win for Kromschroeder, even though he led the whole race.

By that point, it was after midnight and the final four features of the night had to be postponed to the following day.

Promoter James Trantina and his crew deserve an A+ for their persistence on this night but the feature races we saw were well worth the wait. Besides, what's a racing trip if you don’t walk in the door at 3:05 a.m., then get up and do it again the next day?

Sunday, September 21

There were some interesting additions to the list of entrants on Sunday. Jason Voigt from Waite Park, who has not raced in a number of years, appeared in the Modified class. Voigt was one of the top Mod Four drivers for many years, then moved up and spent a few years racing Modifieds before dropping from the racing scene. Well, it appears he’s back.

Jake Molitor raced the car that Blake Adams — and before him is father Kevin — raced for the last couple of years in the Modified class. Blake debuted a new car recently.

Jake was a really good runner in the Mid Mods for years before dropping from the sport, then reappearing the last couple of years; at one point, he had shared a Mid Mod with Scott Tofte before each got their own cars. Tofte has now been racing well in the Mid Mods for the last couple of years and Molitor has moved up to the Mods.

Matt Baker also made his first appearance in several years. Baker was very successful racing in the Mid Mods with a very unique looking, Ford-powered car that always caught the eye of the fans and other drivers and seemed to push the edges of legality from many different angles.

Now, after being away from the sport for several years, he's back again but this time with a Modified. The car, which is a home-built special, has that same odd (for lack of a better term) appearance to it. While he opted not to race on Saturday, he was on the track and ran decently in his heat race Sunday. You can bet that if he starts running well, folks will be all over this ride, just as they were with his Mid Mod because it definitely looks different.

Things were quite a bit different for the finale of the season and the Piston Cup on Sunday. The track crew spent many hours on the track after Saturday night and it showed on day two; the surface was much drier and smoother, and certainly raced differently than it had on Saturday.

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE