River Cities Recap: Kennedy wins after two-year hiatus

Schill doubles down in Lates and Mods

​By Mike Spieker

GRAND FORKS, N.D. (May 27, 2022) – The 2022 season at River Cities Speedway finally got underway Friday night and there were no shortages of storylines. After being sidelined for over two years due to the pandemic, Thomas Kennedy made his highly anticipated return and showed no signs of rust, winning the Buffalo Wild Wings NOSA Sprint Car feature. Lance Schill visited victory lane twice, claiming both the Happy Harry’s Midwest Modified feature and the Cirrus Aircraft Late Model feature. Trey Hess’ strong performance in the Big Al’s Construction Street Stocks landed him in RydellCars.com Victory Lane as well. 

Nineteen Buffalo Wild Wings NOSA Sprints made the call for the 25 lap feature, led by Jordan Graham and Jack Croaker. 

In search of his first career win, Graham won the drag race into turn one and led the field on the opening lap. Fourth-place starting Kennedy ran third at the end of lap one and moved past Croaker in the early stages. Kennedy then went to work on Graham as the leaders closed in on lapped traffic. 

Kennedy took the lead on lap eight by driving to the inside of Graham in turn three. 

Two laps later, the red flag was displayed after Nick Omdahl got upside down in turn one. He was okay. 

On the restart, Mark Dobmeier moved into second but the race was halted shortly thereafter again as Travis Strandell and Croaker made contact, resulting in Croaker getting upside down. Croaker was uninjured.

Kennedy then held off Dobmeier each and every time during a series of restarts in the closing stages as he rode the razor thin cushion to his 14th career NOSA win. Dobmeier and Pierce rounded out the podium. Pierce’s streak of seven consecutive River Cities Speedway wins came to an end. 

Lance Schill doubled up on the night, winning both the Happy Harry’s Midwest Modified feature and the Cirrus Aircraft Late Model feature. Schill started outside of row four in the Midwest Mod main event and used the high side of the speedway to his advantage to quickly move into third. 

Ahead of him, Jory Berg and Austin Hunter had a good battle going for the lead, but a mid-race restart allowed Schill the opportunity to move by Berg for second. Schill then ran down Hunter and completed a pass for the lead with a textbook slide job in turn two and cruised to the win. 

A stout field of 28 Cirrus Aircraft Late Models were checked in with the fastest 24 making the grid for the 20-lap feature. 

River Cities Speedway veterans Joey Pederson and Brad Seng started on the front row with Pederson jumping out to the early lead. 

Pederson slipped up approaching lapped traffic which allowed Ryan Corbett and Schill to pounce. Corbett grabbed the lead with Schill hot on his heals. 

One lap later, Schill made a power move to the inside of Corbett to gain the point. Schill had his hands full until he cleared lapped traffic. From there, it was smooth sailing as he picked up his second win of the night. 

Trey Hess may not have had the fastest car during the Big Al’s Construction Street Stock feature, but he was able to hold on to get the win. Hess looked like the class of the field early on as he dominated that first half of the event from his second started position. However, Greg Jose came up to battle the driver of the No. 4 near the midway point. Hess and Jose were side by side for the lead when a caution gave Hess sole possession of the lead and clean track ahead. 

Jose came back to battle Hess and brought Aaron Blacklance with him as it became a three-wide battle for the lead late in the race. Blacklance and Jose made contact in turns three and four, which allowed Hess to pull away and secure the win. 

NOSA SPRINTS
A Feature 1 (25 Laps): 1. 21K-Thomas Kennedy[4]; 2. 13JT-Mark Dobmeier[5]; 3. 2A-Austin Pierce[9]; 4. 55-Nick Ranten[3]; 5. 11M-Brendan Mullen[6]; 6. 9N-Wade Nygaard[8]; 7. 8H-Jade Hastings[7]; 8. 26-Blake Egeland[12]; 9. 17-Zach Omdahl[19]; 10. 22-Nick Otto[15]; 11. 41-Travis Strandell[17]; 12. 42-Rick Bates[13]; 13. (DNF) 10S-Josh Swangler[16]; 14. (DNF) 99-Jordan Graham[1]; 15. (DNF) 14-Tom Egeland[14]; 16. (DNF) 8BALL-Jack Croaker[2]; 17. (DNF) 31-Shane Roemeling[11]; 18. (DNF) 0-Nick Omdahl[10]; 19. (DNS) 20A-Jordan Adams

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 99-Jordan Graham[1]; 2. 13JT-Mark Dobmeier[3]; 3. 9N-Wade Nygaard[4]; 4. 31-Shane Roemeling[5]; 5. 42-Rick Bates[7]; 6. (DNS) 20A-Jordan Adams; 7. (DNS) 17-Zach Omdahl

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 8BALL-Jack Croaker[1]; 2. 8H-Jade Hastings[3]; 3. 2A-Austin Pierce[2]; 4. 11M-Brendan Mullen[4]; 5. 14-Tom Egeland[6]; 6. 10S-Josh Swangler[5]

Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 55-Nick Ranten[2]; 2. 21K-Thomas Kennedy[3]; 3. 0-Nick Omdahl[4]; 4. 26-Blake Egeland[1]; 5. 22-Nick Otto[6]; 6. 41-Travis Strandell[5]

WISSOTA LATE MODELS
A Feature (20 Laps): 1. 17-Lance Schill[4]; 2. C4-Ryan Corbett[3]; 3. 12S-Brad Seng[2]; 4. 5E-Shane Edginton[7]; 5. 00-Mitch Johnson[15]; 6. 7P-Joey Pederson[1]; 7. 71S-Dustin Strand[6]; 8. 17G-Mike Greseth[20]; 9. 29K-Ryan Kereluk[11]; 10. F9-Brandon Fuller[22]; 11. 14-Brody Troftgruben[12]; 12. 11-Troy Schill[19]; 13. 33-Ryan Dahl[8]; 14. 70-Jesse Teunis[18]; 15. 14M-Greg Moore[14]; 16. 12F-Greg Friestad[16]; 17. (DNF) 9A-Blake Anderson[21]; 18. (DNF) 00C-Brandon Corbett[24]; 19. (DNF) 1M-Nicholas Minske[10]; 20. (DNF) T1-Tom Corcoran[5]; 21. (DNF) 42-Matthew Jarvis[17]; 22. (DNF) 21S-John Seng[23]; 23. (DNF) 2*-Cole Babcock[13]; 24. (DNF) 9-Steve Anderson[9]

B Feature 1 (10 Laps): 1. 9A-Blake Anderson[3]; 2. F9-Brandon Fuller[7]; 3. 21S-John Seng[8]; 4. 00C-Brandon Corbett[5]; 5. 54-Terry Nelson[4]; 6. 5S-Chris Smeby[6]; 7. 11S-Casey Stremick[2]; 8. (DNF) 16S-Jeff Hapala[1]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 17-Lance Schill[1]; 2. 12S-Brad Seng[6]; 3. 9-Steve Anderson[7]; 4. 2*-Cole Babcock[4]; 5. 42-Matthew Jarvis[5]; 6. 16S-Jeff Hapala[2]; 7. 00C-Brandon Corbett[3]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. T1-Tom Corcoran[1]; 2. 33-Ryan Dahl[3]; 3. 1M-Nicholas Minske[2]; 4. 14M-Greg Moore[5]; 5. 70-Jesse Teunis[6]; 6. 11S-Casey Stremick[7]; 7. (DNF) F9-Brandon Fuller[4]

Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 7P-Joey Pederson[1]; 2. 71S-Dustin Strand[4]; 3. 29K-Ryan Kereluk[2]; 4. 00-Mitch Johnson[6]; 5. 11-Troy Schill[5]; 6. 9A-Blake Anderson[3]; 7. (DNF) 21S-John Seng[7]

Heat 4 (8 Laps): 1. C4-Ryan Corbett[2]; 2. 5E-Shane Edginton[5]; 3. 14-Brody Troftgruben[3]; 4. 12F-Greg Friestad[6]; 5. 17G-Mike Greseth[4]; 6. 54-Terry Nelson[7]; 7. 5S-Chris Smeby[1]

WISSOTA MIDWEST MODS

A Feature  (20 Laps): 1. 17-Lance Schill[8]; 2. 44-Austin Hunter[4]; 3. B0-Jory Berg[1]; 4. 6R-Nate Reynolds[6]; 5. 39-Jamie Dietzler[9]; 6. 57X-Blake Higginbotham[15]; 7. 111-Jason Halverson[10]; 8. 15C-Chris Edmonds[2]; 9. 22-Alex Minks[3]; 10. 29-Cylen Vargason[11]; 11. (DNF) 12L-Kyle Leake[12]; 12. (DNF) 5C-Preston Carr[7]; 13. (DNS) 57-Nathan Raasakka; 14. (DNS) 87S-Reise Stenberg; 15. (DNS) 68-Joe Henninger

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 5C-Preston Carr[6]; 2. 15C-Chris Edmonds[3]; 3. 22-Alex Minks[2]; 4. 44-Austin Hunter[7]; 5. 39-Jamie Dietzler[5]; 6. 29-Cylen Vargason[8]; 7. (DNF) 87S-Reise Stenberg[1]; 8. (DNF) 57X-Blake Higginbotham[4]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 17-Lance Schill[2]; 2. 57-Nathan Raasakka[5]; 3. 6R-Nate Reynolds[7]; 4. B0-Jory Berg[6]; 5. 111-Jason Halverson[3]; 6. 12L-Kyle Leake[4]; 7. (DNF) 68-Joe Henninger[1]

WISSOTA STREET STOCKS
A Feature (20 Laps): 1. 4-Trey Hess[2]; 2. 5BA-Aaron Blacklance[8]; 3. 28-Greg Jose[4]; 4. 19-Cole Greseth[7]; 5. 67-Weston Ramsrud[5]; 6. 1M-Nicholas Minske[6]; 7. 29-Dan McNamee[3]; 8. 37-Chris Ekren[11]; 9. 17-Nick Shumansky[15]; 10. 30-Seth Klostreich[14]; 11. 6-Joe Potter[13]; 12. (DNF) 99-Josh Barker[12]; 13. (DNF) 3L-Zach Lee[9]; 14. (DNF) 1J-Cody Armstrong[17]; 15. (DNF) 35-John Halvorson[10]; 16. (DNF) 7B-David Barker[16]; 17. (DNF) 7-James Meagher[1]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 5BA-Aaron Blacklance[7]; 2. 67-Weston Ramsrud[4]; 3. 7-James Meagher[3]; 4. 1M-Nicholas Minske[8]; 5. 3L-Zach Lee[5]; 6. 37-Chris Ekren[1]; 7. 6-Joe Potter[6]; 8. (DNF) 7B-David Barker[9]; 9. (DNF) 1J-Cody Armstrong[2]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 19-Cole Greseth[2]; 2. 28-Greg Jose[1]; 3. 4-Trey Hess[4]; 4. 29-Dan McNamee[8]; 5. 35-John Halvorson[5]; 6. 99-Josh Barker[6]; 7. 30-Seth Klostreich[7]; 8. 17-Nick Shumansky[3]​