Forum: Minnesota Dirt Track Racing Forum (go)
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Here are some observations from Sunday's UMSS winged and traditonal doubleheader at Granite City Speedway.  I tried to post something similar to this a few days ago, but I don't see it on the Board, so I am trying again.

I have nothing, but good things to say about the Granite City track crew.  I had my doubts heading up to Sauk Rapids for this one, there were six classes of cars, hot laps started at 5:30 on a hot, sunny, windy day.  The wind was blowing straight into the fans face in the grandstands, I anticipated a boring follow the race night on a way too dry track, getting pummeled with dust all night long.  Not the case at all.  The crew kept watering the track as the night went long, and while the track did dry out, the track was racy and their was very little dust considering the elements.  Despite running six classes, the last feature of the night wrapped up at 9:30.  Great job!!

Both the winged and the traditional features went green to checkered with no cautions.  Both features were 25 laps in length. All 11 cars finished the traditional feature, and 13 of the 14 finished the winged feature.  How rare is that?

Has anyone had their way with a series the way Brooke Tatnell has had with the UMSS?   I believe Brooke has started 36 UMSS featues over the years and has won 28 of them.  I think he has won every single UMSS feature that both he and I attended at the same time.  Last week, he won at St. Croix Valley after starting 20TH!!  Incredible.  At Granite City Sunday, he subbed for Rick Kobs in the 34 and picked up yet another win.

Davey Heskin and Brooke Tatnell are both regulars at Knoxville on Saturday nigths.  Down in Knoxville, Davey has finished higher than Brooke in seven of the eight weeks.  Last year, Davey finished ahead of Brook nearly every night as well, but when the two go head-to-head in UMSS 360 action, Brooke beats Davey every time.  That is because Brooke beats nearly everyone every night in UMSS racing.  On Sunday, Davey led the first ten laps of the race before Brooke got around him.  

I was very impressed with Tony Norem's run.  Norem hit the wall twice on the first lap and dropped all the way back to 12th right away.  He was nearly 3/4 of a lap behind Heskin and Tatnell after the first two laps.  But from laps 13-25, Norem was by far the fastest car on the track picking off everyone one-at-a time until the end of the race when he was right off of Tatnell's push bar to finish second.  Tony only has raced a handful of times this year, where has he been at?  

Two rookies that impress me in the winged division are Ryan Bowers and Jamie Ogston.  These guys have caught on quickly.  Bowers has had experience in other classes and  has made the transition to the sprint cars well.  I don't know much about Ogston, but each time I see him, he is faster than the last.  Bowers finished third on Sunday and Ogston fifth with Davey Heskin finishing in between them.

Another driver and program getting more compeitive as the years go on is Jennifer Ericksen and crew.  They had a lot of tough luck on Sunday, but after starting 14th in the feature, worked her way up to a ninth place finish.  She has been much more compeitive than in the past, but has had a lot of mechanical problems that have knocked her out of a lot of races.  I doubt anyone has lost more laps this year due to mechanical issues than she has.  I'd like to see her hang on and finish in the top three sometime.

The traditional feature was a classic battle between the rim riders and the bottom dwellers.  Early on in the race, Rob Caho Jr. and Chase Viebrock used the high side of the track to blast out to a huge lead over the rest of the field.  The cars that chose to stick to the bottom kept losing more and more ground.  Then things completely changed and the bottom became the quicker way around.  Mike Mueller used the bottom to cut what had to be at least a half lap deficit with half of the race to go to a wheel to wheel battle at the end.  Kudos to Caho who did move down to block Mueller when Mueller caught him, but for the most part held his line on the top of the track allowing Mueller to race him.  It was a classic dual with Mueller edging ahead with just a couple of laps to go and hanging on to pick up his third win of the year and fourth of his career.  Cam Schaefer got stuck in traffic early, but finished strong to end up third.  

I am really impressed with Chase Viebrock.  The guy is 15 years old, driving a sprint car for the first time in his career, but motors that thing around like he has been doing this for twenty years.  He drives hard, and I am sure he has received a few choice words a time or two from some of the veteran drivers, but boy has he been fun to watch.

The traditional sprint cars have come a long ways.  Early on they were just a handful of cars putting on exhibition races.  Now the car count has grown to the mid teens most nights and the quality of the teams has gotten so much better.  Now you have Schaeffer, Caho, Mueller, Viebrock who are candidates to win each night.  You have guys from the past that used to win all of the races, but have cut back on their schedules like Parsons and Bradwell.  The three Koubas are all competitive in this class as well.  Hats off to all of the others in the traditional class that have made this a very fun class to watch!!

I favor the sprint cars, never will apologize for that, but man did the other classes do a nice job on Sunday.  The midwest mods, street stocks, mod 4s, and hornets all ran 20 lap features (the Hornets only 15).  Two of them went green to checkered, the midwest mod feature might have had two cautions and I think the Hornet feature had two cautions.  All four of the features took less than 40 minutes to run combined!!  Tim Johnson won both the midwest mod feature and the street stock feature, that was impressive.  I think he ran his entire heat race entirely on the two wheels.  I think his inside wheels might have tapped the ground twice over the eight lap race.  That was pretty cool to see.

Overall I would give Granite City and the UMSS an A for Sunday.  The only thing that would have made it better is if Parsons, Haseltine, Kamrath, Stordahl, Peper, Brandt, either of the Hendricksons or Tauberts, Graf, Kobs, Grosz, Goerges, Hahn, Matuska, Becker, Kaus, Tostenson, and the Brotys would have been there.  The only downer on this night was the car count was lower than I had hoped.

Thanks Chad,

It was a good night of racing.  You and the rest put on a good show Sunday.  I plan on getting to SCVR Friday night. There isn't a better night of racing than when the winged and the traditional cars are on the same program.  I wish I could head to Cedar Lake on Saturday, but that is day one of a family vacation to a lake cabin.  Best of luck this weekend, I hope you do well.  It is good to see your team back out there this year, didn't see the 15 much last year.

Here are some observations from Sunday's UMSS winged and traditonal doubleheader at Granite City Speedway.  I tried to post something similar to this a few days ago, but I don't see it on the Board, so I am trying again.

I have nothing, but good things to say about the Granite City track crew.  I had my doubts heading up to Sauk Rapids for this one, there were six classes of cars, hot laps started at 5:30 on a hot, sunny, windy day.  The wind was blowing straight into the fans face in the grandstands, I anticipated a boring follow the race night on a way too dry track, getting pummeled with dust all night long.  Not the case at all.  The crew kept watering the track as the night went long, and while the track did dry out, the track was racy and their was very little dust considering the elements.  Despite running six classes, the last feature of the night wrapped up at 9:30.  Great job!!

Both the winged and the traditional features went green to checkered with no cautions.  Both features were 25 laps in length. All 11 cars finished the traditional feature, and 13 of the 14 finished the winged feature.  How rare is that?

Has anyone had their way with a series the way Brooke Tatnell has had with the UMSS?   I believe Brooke has started 36 UMSS featues over the years and has won 28 of them.  I think he has won every single UMSS feature that both he and I attended at the same time.  Last week, he won at St. Croix Valley after starting 20TH!!  Incredible.  At Granite City Sunday, he subbed for Rick Kobs in the 34 and picked up yet another win.

Davey Heskin and Brooke Tatnell are both regulars at Knoxville on Saturday nigths.  Down in Knoxville, Davey has finished higher than Brooke in seven of the eight weeks.  Last year, Davey finished ahead of Brook nearly every night as well, but when the two go head-to-head in UMSS 360 action, Brooke beats Davey every time.  That is because Brooke beats nearly everyone every night in UMSS racing.  On Sunday, Davey led the first ten laps of the race before Brooke got around him.  

I was very impressed with Tony Norem's run.  Norem hit the wall twice on the first lap and dropped all the way back to 12th right away.  He was nearly 3/4 of a lap behind Heskin and Tatnell after the first two laps.  But from laps 13-25, Norem was by far the fastest car on the track picking off everyone one-at-a time until the end of the race when he was right off of Tatnell's push bar to finish second.  Tony only has raced a handful of times this year, where has he been at?  

Two rookies that impress me in the winged division are Ryan Bowers and Jamie Ogston.  These guys have caught on quickly.  Bowers has had experience in other classes and  has made the transition to the sprint cars well.  I don't know much about Ogston, but each time I see him, he is faster than the last.  Bowers finished third on Sunday and Ogston fifth with Davey Heskin finishing in between them.

Another driver and program getting more compeitive as the years go on is Jennifer Ericksen and crew.  They had a lot of tough luck on Sunday, but after starting 14th in the feature, worked her way up to a ninth place finish.  She has been much more compeitive than in the past, but has had a lot of mechanical problems that have knocked her out of a lot of races.  I doubt anyone has lost more laps this year due to mechanical issues than she has.  I'd like to see her hang on and finish in the top three sometime.

The traditional feature was a classic battle between the rim riders and the bottom dwellers.  Early on in the race, Rob Caho Jr. and Chase Viebrock used the high side of the track to blast out to a huge lead over the rest of the field.  The cars that chose to stick to the bottom kept losing more and more ground.  Then things completely changed and the bottom became the quicker way around.  Mike Mueller used the bottom to cut what had to be at least a half lap deficit with half of the race to go to a wheel to wheel battle at the end.  Kudos to Caho who did move down to block Mueller when Mueller caught him, but for the most part held his line on the top of the track allowing Mueller to race him.  It was a classic dual with Mueller edging ahead with just a couple of laps to go and hanging on to pick up his third win of the year and fourth of his career.  Cam Schaefer got stuck in traffic early, but finished strong to end up third.  

I am really impressed with Chase Viebrock.  The guy is 15 years old, driving a sprint car for the first time in his career, but motors that thing around like he has been doing this for twenty years.  He drives hard, and I am sure he has received a few choice words a time or two from some of the veteran drivers, but boy has he been fun to watch.

The traditional sprint cars have come a long ways.  Early on they were just a handful of cars putting on exhibition races.  Now the car count has grown to the mid teens most nights and the quality of the teams has gotten so much better.  Now you have Schaeffer, Caho, Mueller, Viebrock who are candidates to win each night.  You have guys from the past that used to win all of the races, but have cut back on their schedules like Parsons and Bradwell.  The three Koubas are all competitive in this class as well.  Hats off to all of the others in the traditional class that have made this a very fun class to watch!!

I favor the sprint cars, never will apologize for that, but man did the other classes do a nice job on Sunday.  The midwest mods, street stocks, mod 4s, and hornets all ran 20 lap features (the Hornets only 15).  Two of them went green to checkered, the midwest mod feature might have had two cautions and I think the Hornet feature had two cautions.  All four of the features took less than 40 minutes to run combined!!  Tim Johnson won both the midwest mod feature and the street stock feature, that was impressive.  I think he ran his entire heat race entirely on the two wheels.  I think his inside wheels might have tapped the ground twice over the eight lap race.  That was pretty cool to see.

Overall I would give Granite City and the UMSS an A for Sunday.  The only thing that would have made it better is if Parsons, Haseltine, Kamrath, Stordahl, Peper, Brandt, either of the Hendricksons or Tauberts, Graf, Kobs, Grosz, Goerges, Hahn, Matuska, Becker, Kaus, Tostenson, and the Brotys would have been there.  The only downer on this night was the car count was lower than I had hoped.