2300 Gateway Drive

PO Box-5205

Grand Forks,  ND  58206

701-780-0999

(Formerly Grand Forks Speedway)

Strand & Snare Sweep as Schill Picks up First Win of 2009

Prepared by Orness Creations

6/12/09 River Cities Speedway
Grand Forks, North Dakota

A beautiful night of weather greeted everyone as they arrived at the Action Track for another Friday night of the Premier Racing Series. A total of seventy-five race teams checked in on a night sponsored by Hugo’s Grocery Stores and Big Jim’s Tire Service. Towards the halfway point mother nature kept everyone guessing as precipitation started to fall off and on, but not until the Sprint feature is when the rain really fell. This prompted officials to postpone the NOSA feature till June 26^th.

To get the night started, there were two heat races for the Transystems Street Stocks. The first heat seen Steffen Snare and Greg Neumann on the front row to start. Snare got the best of the rest of the field by crossing the finish line first with Tyson Anderson advancing from the third spot to finish second. Neumann held on for a top three finish. Henry Peters won the second heat race from outside the pole. Pole-sitter, Bryce Reimer finished second with James Wall third.

The WISSOTA Street Stock feature has only one driver advance more than three spots, and that would be the eventual feature winner. Steffen Snare started eighth and through three caution he was able to find his way to the front and continue on to be the first street stock driver to repeat wins in 2009. Canadian, Henry Peters started second and finished in the same spot with Joe Potter advancing from the sixth spot to finish third. James Wall finished fourth, just ahead of Tyson Anderson who advanced two spots to finish fifth.

The Hawks Hobby Heaven sponsored Midwest Modifieds ran four heat races with a total of twenty five cars split into those four heats. Patrick Sobolik used the pole position to his advantage to pick up the first heat race win. Dave Riopelle and Dustin Ness chased Sobolik across the line. Scott Vasichek of Brocket, ND won the second heat race, with Chad Jensen and Tony Byzewski second and third. Dustin Strand advanced from the third starting spot of the third heat race to pick up the win with the pole-sitter, Todd Johnson second and Ryan Schroeder third. Bryan LePier started on the pole of the third heat race, and held on to the lead through the checkered flag ahead of Scott Bintz of Jamestown, ND and Matt Schow of McIntosh, MN

The WISSOTA Midwest Modified feature race started all cars with the exception of Zach Naastad who couldn’t make repairs from an accident in the heat race when Friestad was leading and spun collecting Naastad who was running second. Though there were less cautions than the week before, The race seen many guys advance from way back, but the highest finishing hard charger was Aaron Olson. Olson started fifteenth and finished third. Lance Schill finished in the top five from the sixteenth starting spot and Bryan Kakela was one spot out of a top five finish after starting fourteenth in the field. Dustin Strand started third and not long into the feature passed Sobolik for the lead and continued on to back up his win from last week with another win to become the first driver in the class to repeat wins. Todd Johnson continues to be strong and advanced five spots to cross the ND Eye Clinic finish line behind Strand. Olson was third, with pole-sitter Sobolik fourth.

Eighteen WISSOTA Late Models were split into three heat races with Brandon Burke picking up the first heat race win with Howie Schill and Joey Pederson chasing him across the line. Steve Anderson started on the pole and captured the win in the second heat race ahead of James SanGrait who made his first appearance of the season. Tom Corcoran advanced two spots to finish third. Hibbing, MN driver, Jeff Provinzino started on the pole of the last heat race and held off Brad Seng for the heat win. Troy Schill started third and finished third.

All Eighteen teams made the call for the WISSOTA Late Model Feature event sponsored by Hugo’s and Big Jims. Steve Anderson and Brandon Burke led the field around to the green flag. Anderson grabbed the lead with Burke second only to get forced off the track by Troy Schill in turn three to bring out the first caution of the night. Track officials charged the yellow to Burke who started at the tail on the restart. Burke then proceeded to charge through the field through the rest of the feature to finish a strong seventh. Schill restarted in the second spot with Anderson leading. With about sixteen laps to go, Schill passed Anderson for the lead and continued on through some sprinkles of precipitation to win his first feature race of 2009. With the sprinkles on the track it looked to make the track even better as there were certain drivers that became faster. Provinzino was one of those drivers that were faster though he slipped off a turn and drove to the pits. Ricky Weiss was another driver as he started tenth and finished in the second spot behind Schill. Howie Schill advanced two spots to finish third with veteran Tom Corcoran finishing a strong fourth. After leading the race, Steve Anderson slipped back some, but still rounded out the top five finishers. Two prior feature winners of the year struggled. Seng and Pederson both did not finish the race but it was Doyle Erickson that was the hard charger by starting fifteenth and finishing one spot out of a top five.

The Nissan Honda of Grand Forks sponsored NOSA Sprints ran two heat races, just before intermission. During the start of the first heat race, Bob Martin was involved in a crash that took out the frontstretch fence and poles as well as some of the wood platform below the grandstands. Some fans were hit with debris and very shaken up, but all were ok, as was Bob Martin. RCS safety crew and personnel were fast to react to the incident and once everyone was checked out, they made repairs to the fence to continue on after a brief delay. Mark Dobmeier continued his dominance by winning the first heat race from the eighth starting spot. Lee Grosz of Harwood, ND was second after starting third and Jordan Graham continues to run hard and finished third. Dave Glennon of Casselton, ND won the second heat race after starting on the pole with Nick Shirek advancing three spots to finish second. Bob Martin finished third after bringing out his backup car and starting tailend of the second heat race. Just after the Late Model feature, the rain started forcing officials to postpone the feature race for the Sprints.

WoO Sprints will be racing June 19^th. This is one of two stops in 2009 and the NLRA Late Models will also be racing as the support class. Ditto again the following night at RRVS in Wet Fargo. Both the WoO Sprints and NLRA Late Models will be in action. The end of June will be Mid-season track championship night June 26^th. All regular classes will run that night. The WoO Late Models will be making their only appearance of the season July 10^th. Tickets are on sale. More information can be found on the speedway’s website, rivercitiesspeedway.com

SUMMARY

WISSOTA Street Stocks

Feature – Snare, Peters, Potter, Wall, Anderson, Brevik, Hulst, Neumann, McNamee, Reimer, Rassier, Leake, Jose

Heat 2 – Henry Peters, Bryce Reimer, James Wall, Dallas, Brevik, Rodney Hulst, Adam Rassier

Heat 1 – Steffen Snare, Tyson Anderson, Greg Neumann, Joe Potter, Dan McNamee, Kelsey Leake, Steve Jose

WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds

Feature – Strand, Johnson, Olson, Sobolik, Schill, Kakela, LePier, Peterson, Bruer, Riopelle, Bintz, Thompson, Gajeski, T. Reimer, Byzewski, Drake, Friestad, W. Reimer, Schow, Vasichek, Schroeder, Ness, Sonstelie, Jensen, Naastad

Heat 4 – Bryan LePier, Scott Bintz, Matt Schow, Lance Schill, Rod Peterson, Zach Bruer

Heat 3 Dustin Strand, Todd Johnson, Ryan Schroeder, Aaron Olson, Adam Thompson, Warren Reimer

Heat 2 – Scott Vasichek, Chad Jensen, Tony Byzewski, Bryan Kakela, Zach Naastad, Greg Friestad

Heat 1 – Patrick Sobolik, Davy Riopelle, Dustin Ness, Gary Sonstelie, Wes Drake, Tyler Reimer

WISSOTA Late Models

Feature – T. Schill, Weiss, H. Schill, Corcoran, Anderson, Erickson, Burke, Sangrait, Bruns, Halvorson, Cameron, Jarvis, Maurstad, Hart, Vennard, Pederson, Seng, Provinzino

Heat 3 – Jeff Provinzino, Brad Seng, Troy Schill, Mike Bruns, Doyle Erickson, Josh Maurstad

Heat 2 – Steve Anderson, James SanGrait, Tom Corcoran, Brad Cameron, Bruce Hart, John Halvorson

Heat 1 – Brandon Burke, Howie Schill, Joey Pederson, Ricky Weiss, David Vennard, Matthew Jarvis

NOSA Sprints

Feature – Postponed till June 26^th

Heat 2 – Dave Glennon, Nick Shirek, Bob Martin, Lou Kennedy Jr., Casey Mack, Shane Roemeling, Wade Nygaard, Ryan Flaten, Chris Ranten, Dusty Lawson

Heat 1 – Mark Dobmeier, Lee Grosz, Jordan Graham, Chris Burke, Justin Berg, Thomas Kennedy, Brenden Wilde, Kevin Lawson, Chris Shirek

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