On Friday June 28 I got up and did my normal Friday routine starting at 5am working all day and taking the bus home. I picked up my camera equipment, changed into my mud shoes and headed to Saint Croix Valley for night one of the Open Wheel Nationals. At this point I should explain that I really can't go into much detail about some of the races I attended. You see, I picked up a new writing deal for a magazine and if it works out it should give my race attendance a boost. I'm not going to give out any details about it until my contributions get published in the next issue. When that happens I will provide more details and promote the new gig every chance I get.
The big news on Friday of the SCVR OWN was the weather. Showers dotted the map from Canada all the way through Wisconsin. The track got a shower in the late afternoon that delayed the show about an hour. We got spit on on and off throughout the night and one shower produced about a half hour delay around 10 o'clock. I'm not going to get into winners and stats for any of these events. You can check out the UMSS and SCVR websites at http://www.umsprints.com/ and http://www.scvraceway.com/ respectively for more details. The racing was great all weekend and Friday's crowd looked to be one of the best I've ever seen out there. I don't know where everyone went on Saturday because the crowd was quite a bit smaller. Usually with weather in the area the opposite would have been true, smaller crowd on preliminary night when rain is in the area and a bigger crowd for the grand finale on Saturday. I suppose that Cedar Lake's Firecracker was probably responsible for pulling some of the crowd as were holiday family gatherings. Whatever happened to those fans all I've got to say is that they missed a great night of racing on Saturday.
The news of the weekend was Scott Broty's crash in the makeup Feature. Brooke Tatnell hand picked Lee Grosz to sub in the Nelson 14 and Lee won the early Feature. Scotty Thiel snookered the field late in the Saturday Feature race to pull out a win. Great racing and beautiful weather about sums up Saturday. All were glad to hear that Scott Broty will recover without surgery or much down time. Here are a couple shots of the action from the OWN.
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| Flyin Ryan on the inside of a three wide battle |
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| Scott Broty racing in Friday make up Feature, probably one of the last shots of him before the crash |
Next up on the Stan M fix the shed, fish from the dock, and see a bunch of races tour was the World of Outlaws at Cedar Lake. The thing that stands out about this show is three flips and a bitch slap up side of the helmet all in the same race. I would say that the bitch was the one doing the slapping in this case. I talked to the other driver involved after he addressed the crowd on the front stretch and he pointed out that if the tables had been turned the reply probably would have been "sorry, no brakes" or something on that order. Hey, the winner on the night isn't nick named "Slammy" for bumping into cars in the church parking lot. Sprint Cars today are like rockets and it's actually pretty amazing that things like the Pittman flip don't happen on every lap. Nobody wrecks people on purpose including my friend who drives the 17b.
It was a great night of racing with beautiful weather and some strong cars in attendance. Tony Stewart didn't show up but that's the way things go sometimes. I cover all of this in my WoO article so I'm going to defer to that and will let you know when and where to look for it. Hopefully they'll post a cover on Facebook that I can share with you.
There were two personal thrills the evening of the Outlaws that made my season. One was being able to take some more photos of the 71m, a car that I missed the first time around in the 90's before I started taking racing photos in earnest. Second, the opportunity to see Rico Abreu race. Rico races out of California and made his first ever appearance at Cedar Lake. My son and I became fans at CLS, the guy can really wheel a Sprint Car and he's a cool dude. Les and I started a Rico chant and maybe if we say it loud and often enough he'll show up again in September. Here's a YouTube video of Rico's wing dive during a victory lane celebration. Les and I loved the wing dive. It looked like a stage dive at a metal concert. The video clip is linked from YouTube so you can follow the link for credits.
Here are a couple shots I took at CLS of Rico and Joey Saldana in the Motter 71m. My next goal is to get a shot of Kyle Larson. Somebody invite Kyle to the Jerry Richert Sr. Memorial, he seems to be showing up just about everywhere so you never know. It doesn't hurt to ask.
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| Joey Saldana in the Motter 71m |
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| Rico gettin' it on at Cedar Lake |
The next thing up on my schedule was supposed to be the Night of Destruction at Cedar Lake. We had been up at the lake home for several days by the morning of Saturday July 6 and we decided to pack up a day early and head home. That meant I would have to drive home from Wisconsin and back track my route a few hours later but no big deal. I have done that before. Anyways I got to the track early as is my normal custom and walked around the pits taking photos. I brought my camera gear down to the infield and went down there before hot laps to get setup. There is a little table or platform or whatever you want to call it attached to the back of the victory lane structure where we photographers sometimes set our cameras. I set my camera on that little table, it slants toward the ground but everybody sets their cameras on it. Evidently the heavy coat of dust deposited a week earlier by the Outlaws acted like miniature ball bearings. I was digging in my camera bag, turned to get my camera and it had fallen off the table onto the ground.
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| One of a handful of shots I took in the pits before hosing up my camera |
I tried right away to take a test shot and it turned out overexposed, totally white with no detail. I made sure all the settings were right but that didn't help. Unfortunately I had to pack up and leave before the start of the program because I couldn't get it working again. I apologize to the Cedar Lake Speedway and Track Rat Vinster for my screw up. Anyways I brought it home, put it in my office, grabbed a beer out of the fridge and sat down to watch the NASCAR race. The next morning I thought I'd give it one more try so I pulled the battery out and put it back in and turned the camera on. Checking the settings and metering it seemed to be registering properly but somehow the drop had caused the exposure compensation to go up to the highest setting. I don't know how that could have happened but I wasn't sure if I could trust it so I decided to add a race to my schedule and went the Cedar Lake weekly show the following Saturday July 13.
The July 13 Cedar Lake weekly show felt comfortable like an old pair of jeans. I used to go there just about every Saturday night all season during the Heyday of my Midwest Racing Connection days. The camera held up all night and produced some decent shots. Weather was beautiful and I got to spend some time visiting with Jamie Goff, Track Rat Vinster and Zimmy. I don't see those guys much anymore so we got to hang out and enjoy some laughs.
Winners included Rick Hanestad's son Buddy who won in the Hornets. Dad didn't compete in his Late Model but he was present to join his son in victory lane. A couple drivers that took some time off from racing came back to Cedar Lake to pick right back up where they left off. Trent Follmer won in the NASCAR Modified division and Tim Borgeson won in the Pro Stocks. Tim's number was 37b for years and now I see that he'd driving a 31b. I'm not sure what that is about, they say a person loses a little each year as they age so maybe Tim lost some numbers. Whatever the reason for the change it was great seeing him back in victory lane. A.J. Diemel won in the Late Models against a field that included Brent Larson, Steve Laursen, John Kaanta, Pat Doar and Shane Clanton from the WoO Late Model series. It was a great night of racing and the final checkers waved around 9:15. When I got home around 10 Les and his wife Tina were hanging with Deb in the living room. Les had some beers so Tina took the kids home and Les spent the night so we could hang in the man cave and bs for a couple hours.
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| Jason Gross Modified |
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| Pat Doar Late Model |
Finally in this installment of the MDTR blog I'll take a minute to say a little bit about Jason's band Via. Jay and my daughter Roberta and the kids spent a couple years living in our lower level up here in Forest Lake. When I'd get home from the races Jay would have a fire going in my fire ring and a cold one waiting for me. I'd get my acoustic guitar and join him around the fire ring and we'd play and sing until the beer ran out or my neighbors flashed their deck lights, whichever came first. Anyways, Jason has moved onto bigger and better things than hanging around F'lake with Grampy. His band Via is playing at the Pourhouse in downtown Minneapolis this Friday. I understand that they will go on around 9 pm and I plan on being there. Most of the folks reading this blog are probably here for the racing but if you want to hear some good rock and roll come on down this Friday.
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| Via at the Pourhouse Minneapolis Friday July 19 |
If you can't make it to this one they have another gig coming up on July 26 opening for the national touring act Smile Empty Soul at Hipp's Pub in Eau Claire. Here's the poster for that one.
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| Via Eau Claire gig July 26 |
Here is a video sample from their first ever show a few months ago at the Cause in Minneapolis. The blogging software won't allow me to imbed this tune into the page so here's a link:
Well, that's going to about do it for now. I'll try not to let so much time go by before my next post and I'll be sure to make an announcement when those articles hit the news stand. Oh, and I'll be sure to let you know how that Via gig goes.
Happy July!
Happy July!
