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Chateau Raceway Matthew Grage by MYRON KIMBERLY GRAGE LANSING, MN (May23) - It was a perfect night for racing as Chateau Raceway in Lansing, powered by Miners Outdoor and Recreation of Blooming Prairie, rolled out week three of racing action Friday night with the Eleventh Annual Mike Guttormson Memorial Event. Mike, a former track champion at Chateau as well as a former WISSOTA 100 Champion suffered a heart attack shortly after winning what would be his final feature in Lansing eleven years ago and this yearly Memorial Race is held each year to salute the love and passion he had for the sport of stock car racing. He rarely missed a night at Lansing over his racing career which had started in the early 70's. After each night of racing he could usually be found sitting on the edge of his trailer taking time to visit with anyone who stopped by, enjoying all that came with a night at the track. Mike ended his career racing his WISSOTA Modified, and although the track still runs three WISSOTA sanctioned classes (Street Stocks, Super Stocks and Midwest Modifieds) the big Modifieds are now USRA sponsored and on this night that class was joined with the USMTS Modified Touring Series for a special night of racing. Although the WISSOTA Street Stocks and Super Stocks were given the night off the Power 96 WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds did run along with the S and S Auto Salvage Hornets and Pizza Ranch Pure Stocks. Ninety Four cars filled the pits for the show with the Big USMTS Modifieds leading the way with a solid field of thirty-eight cars on hand. The field put on a nice show with four very exciting heat races leading off the nights program. All four heat winners picked up there first wins of the season at Chateau with only one of them being a first time visitor to the track this year. Mark Noble of Blooming Prairie took heat one leading flag to flag after starting on the pole. Josh Reisch of Luverne made a nice run from row three to finish second. Heat two saw Dan Bohr of Decorah IA work from row three to the front in just three laps and than hold off Corey Dripps of Waterloo IA who worked from row four up to second. Kelly Shryock of Fertile IA scored the win in heat three winning a tight battle with Dereck Ramirez of Woodward Oklahoma. Ramirez had the early lead after starting on the pole with Shryock right behind him in row two. The two moved to the front at the drop of the green flag with Kelly keeping the pressure on until he made to the move to the front on lap six. Nate Wasmund matched Reisch run from row three in heat two with a run from the same starting spot in heat four to score a victory. Nate made a big move on lap one to move to second behind pole sitter Garry Oskerson of Fairmont. Wasmund ran a nice race and made to the wining move on lap six that put him in front and gave him the win. With the big field of cars two B Main events were needed to pair down the field. B main number one was dominated by Jake Neal of Omaha Nebraska. Jake started row two and after running third on lap one he pulled up into a side by side battle with pole sitter Shawn Peterson of Cottage Grove for the lead. The two ran two laps of side by side action before Neal pulled to the point and proceeded to pull away to a convincing win. Unfortunately a reported problem with oil pressure after the win kept him from taking his spot in the feature. B main number two was lead early by Garry Oskerson of Fairmont but Tim Donlinger of Rochester would eventually get the win. Donlinger ran several thrilling side by side laps with Jason Krohn of Slayton behind Oskerson before shaking both of them off and going to the point on lap seven and holding off Krohn for the win. The "11th Annual Guttormson Memorial" Feature event provided forty laps
of wild action as several of the top finishers came from deep in the field.
Josh Reisch came off the pole on the drop of the green to take the early
lead and proceeded to put a hurt on the field as he pulled off to a full
staightaway lead before starting to lap cars on lap thirteen. Behind him
Doug Hillson of Blooming Prairie was having a wild race with Tim Donlinger
of Rochester. Donlinger, who started in row seven, wasted no time coming
toward the front. He rocketed to sixth in just four laps and two laps later
moved into fourth. On lap nine he was third and he and Hillson raced several
laps side by side with Doug doing a great job of holding him off. Meanwhile
coming forward just as fast was Jason Krohn who started back in row eight
after qualifying with his second place run to Donlinger in there B main.
Krohn cracked the top five on lap eleven and while Donlinger and Hillson
were battling for second he made it a three way battle a couple laps later
and on lap twenty at the midpoint of the race he finished moving past both
of them to take over second behind Reisch. A caution regrouped the field and
Jason took just three laps to take over the lead. If losing the lead wasn't
bad enough for Reisch after dominating the first half of the race on lap
twenty-six he went to the infield with what appeared to be a flat left rear
tire. Hillsons luck was just as bad. After running so strong early he slowed
and stopped on the track three laps later as track officails picked up
pieces of driveshaft in turn four. There would be one more restart after
that as with ten laps to go some close racing in turns three and four lead
to Nate Wasmund slowing in the middle of turn four with Mark Noble getting
into him and hooking the cars together pretty tight. After the wreckers
pulled the two them apart the field regrouped for one final sprint to the
finish. Krohn was on point but had Donlinger and Kelly Shryock paired up
right behind him. Shryock had been doing a nice job of hanging around the
top five looking for an opportunity and this looked like a possibility for
him. However Krohn got away clean on the restart and Donlinger took over
control of second. Krohn was unable to stretch his lead back out and as the
final two laps ran off Tim stayed with in a car length or two but Jason had
what it took to come home with the big feature win. Behind Donlinger and
Shryock it was Steve Wetzstien of West Concord and Zack Vanderbeek of New
Sharon Iowa. Both made nice runs from back in the field as Steve started
back in row five and Zach was back in row nine when the grid was lined up.
Shryock had the best starting position of all of the top five after starting
in row three. The Pizza Ranch Pure Stocks ran a nice feature with Brandon Skalciky of Claremont once again dominating the class. Skalciky started in row five and made his way to second on lap five behind Jake Siemers of Hayfield. On lap later he went to the front and scored his third staight feature win at the track to start the season. Ross Spitzer of Dodge Center and Dylan Nelson of Freeborn scored there first wins of the season in two of the three heats. The third heat winner was Billy Steinberg of Kasson. In S and S Auto Salvage Hornet racing action Randy Rauen of Austin scored his first feature win of the season having to hold of Gary Stahl of Kasson to get the victory. Stahl had been unstoppable so far this season. He was yet to lose a race after scoring sweeps in the first two weeks of the season and scoring a win again Friday night in his heat. However in the feature it was Rauen who made the bigger first lap move. Randy, starting outside of row three, jumped to the outside on the drop of the green and shot straight to the front. Stahl, working from inside of row four needed two laps just to get into the top five. On lap four he moved up to third but by than Rauen and Elijah Zevenbergen of Oceyeda Iowa were out in front by some distance. A late caution played into his favor however and gave him a shot at keeping his string alive. While Elijah and Gary battled for second Rauen tried to stretch his lead back out. He got out just far enough as after Gary made the pass for second he had just enough time to catch Randy but not enough time to pass him. Rauen also had a heat win on the night giving him a sweep for the evening. Zevenbergen scored his first win of the season by taking a heat win as well. Racing action will continue next Friday Night at Chateau Raceway with all
six classes of cars back in action, WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds-Street Stocks
and Super Stocks, The Pure Stocks, Hornets and USRA Modifieds all ready to
do battle on the one-third mile oval. Hot laps scheduled for 7:15 with
racing action at 7:30. |