Unlike last week’s frigid welcome, Mother Nature cooperated with decent temperatures and a full moon thrown in for good measure. Before qualifying even began, we were told a couple of people lost their balance, causing one to be transported by ambulance to check for injuries. Not only this, but a fire had erupted in the pit area at the same time, we understand. Nevertheless, qualifying went a little ahead of schedule to make sure everything started on time. Just another night at the race track for veteran owner Kevin Dawson.

After 22 years in the business, Dawson has pretty much seen the gamut of things that can go wrong. With fans spread from one end of the bleachers to the other, Dawson opened the evening’s program with a welcome. Dawson thanked the fans for their support and urged them to continue going to the races somewhere next year in order to keep racing alive. Then Dale Erdman paid tribute to those who had passed away since last season, always an emotional time as the black flag is displayed by a driver for the memorial lap. It was great to see other media folks here, instead of being the only one after all these years. Photos were taken of the final “graduating classes” in each division, and special shirts have been made to commemorate Lake Geneva’s last season.

Beginning and ending on time has always been Dawson’s trademark, but Saturday it would be even quicker. With weather threatening to arrive before the end of the program Dawson told us there would be no heat races to speed the program along. Semi features for the super stock and super late model divisions posted the final feature berths, and the sportsman feature began with rolling driver introductions. A few laps later a spin brought out the first caution, followed by two more before the contest nearly made it to the checkers. But five circuits before the end another car spun and Jeremy Spoonmore took the lead away from Rob Braun on the restart, the fourth and final leader of the 30-lap contest. Asked to tell the fans about his experience, Spoonmore declared, “Not a bad day; started this morning with practice at Grundy (in Illinois), got here and changed just about everything. And here we are.”

The super stock field followed, also beginning with a flurry of caution flags in the opening laps. After the third yellow banner veteran Tom Roney stole the lead away from Dave Melahn and the race sped to conclusion. Roney told the audience, “ We just got a new setup in the car and it seems to be working for us.” Roney then added, “One thing I’ve never done here when I won is take the checkered flag around,” and followed up with a reverse victory lap to the cheers of the audience. Memories are made of this.

Thanks to the quick program the late model drivers were allowed out-of-car introductions before their 40-lap contest. The roll of the die earlier had set the inversion so that Darnell began in the sixth row. The first circuit wasn’t completed when a car spun, forcing a complete restart. It was shortly before the midway point of the race that things began to go awry. Leader Jeff Lorenz ended his night by riding the backstretch wall on two wheels, another pair of yellows followed, and Darnell emerged the winner. “I’m glad to be back here,” declared the popular winner, adding, “I’m really going to miss running this place.” Darnell isn’t the only one. So ended the beginning of the checkered flag season at Lake Geneva Raceway. Shortly after 10:30 we had seen 100 green-flag laps of feature racing, ten different leaders, and three winners. Not one of them, by the way, were won from the front row. Next Saturday we’ll do it all over again, followed by a Sunday afternoon opener at Slinger Speedway.