Saturday’s rain had no part of Lake Geneva Raceway, even though the radar showed it was covering the area. Luckily, we are able to call the track before making the one-hour drive to find out the truth. Our reward was a full program of racing in four divisions, highlights and low. Not all the entries made it to qualifying, and a couple found their cars quitting too early. Josh Wallace had something fail in his super stock during qualifying, so borrowed the mount of Michael Olson to tally more championship points. John Janssen’s sportsman went powerless before even posting one lap, but his crew found the problem and got him on track in time for the heat. Mike Gunderson ran both his super stock and late model, this week joined by Jaime Dorsey. Leading the Midwest Sportsman Championship Series points coming into their final event at Lake Geneva, Dorsey decided to borrow a Rick Corso late model. In his late model heat, Dorsey got tangled with another car instead of finishing second.

Saturday’s visiting group was the Super Mini Cup club from Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. The club’s officers are also competitors, and the age range is from 12 to nearly 50 among over 20 entries. While president Jeff Myers led off the evening with quick time, the rest of the show was stolen by youth. Heats were won by 20-year old Brandon Scurto and 15-year old Jake Jump. Mick Ellis, the club’s secretary, led off the 25-lap feature, then pitted on the first caution. After several swaps for the lead, Scurto backed up his heat win with the feature victory.

The late models ran twin 25-lap features Saturday, with Lake Geneva providing a special point system to determine the overall winner. Fifteen of the 20 mounts were inverted after the roll of the die, and the top 15 finishers from the first contest would also be inverted for the second. To make things more interesting, there were no cautions in the first race, which sometimes helps a driver move up by choosing a quick lane. Gunderson led off the initial feature, but was forced to pit when a part fell off his mount. Vincent Merry took the honors over a cluster of thundering machines, with several striving for the balance between points and starting position for the next race.

Eddie May was right in the middle of this bunch, his second start moved up by one slot when Dorsey chose to begin at the rear of the field. With only Mike Simon missing the second 25, there were many high hopes at the start. One caution gave all the lane choice for the restart, and May made it to the front with less than ten laps remaining. “Congratulations to all the drivers”, declared May, “It was an excellent race”. Behind May, a quick-closing Jeff Way was notably charging through the field, passing one last car at the end and thus taking the night‘s overall win by one point. “I didn’t know where I was (in the points)”, claimed Way, “I just passed as many cars as I could”. Way, a former motocross competitor, thought that points would be awarded similar to then, and knew he had to scramble. So there you have it: May? No, Way. And I’m not sorry for the wordplay.

Saturday’s super stocks ran their feature with no delays, the third leader being the charm. Scott Norton had to keep Randy Schneider behind him after making the winning pass, which helped stave off the fast-closing Gunderson at the end of the 25-lap feature.

The 40-lap sportsman finale was more than enough time for several to make their way to the front. But once Kenny Joosten got to the point, the others could not win. Joosten was jubilant at his success, spinning donuts on the frontstretch before his visit to victory lane. “The car was awesome”, declared Joosten, thanking his crew, sponsors, family, and everyone he could think of. Making things even better, Joosten also earned the bonus money for the overall point total at the end of Saturday night, and we think he’s still smiling. Just after 10:00 it was all over, but the shouting was a happy end to Saturday.

Sunday brought out more cars to Slinger Speedway, perhaps knowing there are only a limited number of races left this season. The late model action was mostly for racers named Dave. Quick time by Feiler, one of those making it through the semi was Teske, and the feature was David Prunty. In between, Dennis Prunty won the 76-lap dash, Mark Bitzan took the semi win, and Mike Strupp led off the 65-lap feature. With two cautions slowing their progress, 15 of the 20 starters finished the main event on the lead lap. In victory circle for the fourth time, Prunty claimed, “It’s kind of obvious who’s getting the championship (Brad Mueller has nearly 100 points over him), so our new goal is to go for five wins”. Lowell Bennett began the night one point behind Prunty, tailing him to the checkered flag in hopes the leader would make a mistake. Not this week.

In the mod field Joe Houpt’s transmission broke as his turn came to qualify. The crew really thrashed to get the car back out, and Eddie Bentfield’s mount barely made it out before the clock was closed for the night. The feature would be all Russ Grade, not allowing anyone to spoil his perfect run. Jason Feyereisen had fast time start his night, then retired in the opening laps of the main event.

The sportsman field would have been swept by James Swan, except for Dave Thomas winning the dash. The previous night, Swan told your scribe of such an ill-handling car that his arms were worn out. Finding a broken suspension part afterwards, Swan said after practice, “The car runs great tonight”. Coming from the fourth row to wrestle the lead away on the final lap, Swan did this without the benefit of a restart in the nonstop contest.

The Thunder Stock field also thundered to the finish line from the green to the checkered flags, and Eric Schuetz was not about to share the lead with anyone. The Slinger Bees began their pair of races with the leading Ryan Zielske blowing a tire just before the final lap. It never fails to amaze me how amateurs as young as 14 years of age can get into these machines and avoid major disaster. But they do, righting themselves from mishaps and rarely causing a caution.

The figure 8 race was somewhat uneventful until the field came to the final strip. Then two of the mounts vying for fourth place collided, one losing a wheel as Willie Van Camp took another win. The demo derby, with eight entries, was tame by comparison, finishing the show before 9:30. By this time we had watched 136 entries in the racing and fan fields, with plenty of time to visit afterwards. The next day we will make another attempt to get my husband’s failing heart treated.