wwwwww.ther.theracingconnection.comacingconnection.com November 2018 Inside... Racing Nuggets SpotlightSpotlight onon FallFall SpecialsSpecials Home State Team Bandit Big Rigs November 2018 Page 2 Page 3 November 2018 Publisher's Note Oktoberfest Fact or Fiction are not so true. This column will consist of a listing of November 2018 Racing According some of the things heard and seen at ‘Fest that were either fact or fiction. P.O. Box 22111 to Plan St. Paul MN, 55122 Fact or Fiction; Tom Reffner came out of retirement 651-451-4036 and drove an AMC Javelin at Oktoberfest this year? www.theracingconnection.com Much to the delight of the fans on hand, this indeed is a fact. Tom raced in the Vintage class Publisher Dan Plan driving John Gilbertson’s replica of the Blue Knight Javelin. Contributing Writers Shane Carlson Fact or Fiction; The 2019 “Futures” race will be Dale P. Danielski known as the Save Your Pit Slab race? This is Jacklyn Daniels-Nuttleman Jason Searcy Dean Reller continued on page 4 Charlie Spry Dan Plan Photographers Guy Adams (815-980-0354) The Blue Knight, Tom Reffner, returned to Over the course of Oktoberfest Race Weekend, you’ll Vance Birno (612-308-3572) hear many different stories. Some are true, and some action at Oktoberfest in 2018 Jeff Blaser (715-498-7544) (Bruce Nuttleman photo) Martin DeFries (651-346-1199) TJ Harron (608-301-5258) Doug Hornickel (920-563-0993) Tom Loos (715-370-7895) Mark Melchiori (414-463-0131) Bruce Nuttleman (612-860-6622) Vince Peterson (612-419-6372) Jess Riedner (608-334-5329 The Midwest Racing Connection is published six times during the summer racing season by The Plan Company, Inc. All material is copyrighted 2018 and may not be reprinted without permission. Subscriptions are $20 for six issues. Call 651-451-4036. Cover photos by: Doug Hornickel, Bruce Nuttleman, Shawn Swanstrom and Ronnie Bill Sox Member of the NMPA National Motorsports Press Association CEDAR VIEW ELECTRIC, INC. 952-469-2100 New Construction - Remodel - Service Work Pools/Hot Tubs - Basements - Additions Residential & Commercial Lakeville, MN www.cedarviewelectric.com November 2018 Page 4 Racing According to Plan from page 3 Bruce Nuttleman photo fiction, but it would be cool. Let’s face it, saving their pit slab is the reason a lot of people enter the Thursday night show. Maybe raise the stakes a bit and let the race winner take another competitors slab at the end of the night. Fact or Fiction; JT Longshots in downtown West Salem was staffed mainly by former Raceway Park Figure 8 competitors and their wives on Saturday of ‘Fest? This is true. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it, but the Wilson, Lebens and Cheever group were serving food and slinging cocktails for patrons all afternoon due to a staffing shortage. Fact or Fiction; Ricky Brooks disqualified the Big 8 Late Model winner at Oktoberfest? Sorry folks, but this was fiction. While the winner of the event was DQ’d, Ricky was in the spectator area watching the Big 8 Late Model main event. Fact or Fiction; LaCrosse Speedway hand makes the pizza sold at their concession stands? Believe it or not, this too is a fact. While the Moma Lisa’s pizza is good too, I’ve always enjoyed the pizza at the track concession stand. I was surprised to see someone in the concession stand spreading out the dough and putting the ingredients together. Dave Noelke confirmed they make their pizza from scratch. You don’t see that too often at race tracks these days. Fact or Fiction: Steve Rubeck arrived at Oktoberfest with a Nissan Cube known as the “Rubeck’s Cube?” This too is fiction, and a cheesy job of Photoshop on my part, but hopefully a few people thought it was funny. Page 5 November 2018 The Midwest Racing Connection Directory Page RR && RR Automotive 612-721-4210 randrautomotiveonline.com Hillside Red Wing, MN RaceFab Drywall 1-800-634-9666 3BDJOH1BSUTt$VTUPN.FUBM'BCSJDBUJPO Shakopee, MN La Crosse, WI Daniel Navrestad www.wilsonoilcompany.com www.dcaracefab.com Tel: 608.781.3929 612-812-0278 Dundas,MN Downtown Shakopee 952-445-9668 612-269-4232 Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube www.facebook.com/themidwestracingconnection www.twitter.com/MidwestRace www.youtube.com/theracingconnection November 2018 Page 6 Going in 2018 Season Wrap-Up Circles once again. Finally, the towel was thrown in, with the idea that the weather has to be better the next day. As Sunday dawned, the rain was still with us, but finally relented, allowing for track drying once again, albeit a bit late from the scheduled time. Jason Thoma runs well here as Charlie Spry well as at any track, and showed it, by taking the GNSS feature over a strong running David Borntreger. Borntreger has Doug Hornickel photo improved very much from his last The catchphrase often used for Rockford Speedway’s appearance here and could be National Short Track Championship is “One Great one to watch next year. Racing Weekend.” And so it was. Hard to believe this was the 53rd annual event already. Matt Lundberg looked really good in the Big 8 feature, running off to a huge lead, as others were stuck in Friday night’s show brought many weekly warriors to traffic. Michael Bilderback made good choices of the the stage, and some first-time winners. Shawn Bowar lane cone on restarts, and along with Dale Nottestad, started racing here in the Bandit class late in the year, moving up through the pack to contend. Bilderback progressively getting faster in limited appearances. and Nottestad put on their own battle for second, still Then came the NSTC, where he got the job done and with Lundberg enjoying this sight in his mirror. drove to a closely contested feature win over Dave Bilderback finally got the lead late in the race, as Schmidt. His victory lane interview was an emotional Nottestad followed and Lundberg made contact with one and he obviously was not prepared with a victory the wall during all of the happenings, which was really lane speech, but that is okay. too bad, as he ran so well. In the end, Bilderback took the win over Max Kahler, one of the young guns who Other winners were more familiar with victory lane, as has been strong here all year. Nottestad followed in Michael Bilderback was happy with his car while third, followed by Jim Olson, who worked his way up winning the “Weekly Warrior” late model main, and the pack in the end, and another young gun, Jacob Adam Cartwright added a sportsman feature win to Nottestad, who impressed me all day. his list. Kevin Memoli won the Roadrunner championship here this season, and now added a The asphalt modifieds were up next, with Justin NSTC win to the list of growing accomplishments in Okruhlica taking the win. One of the young drivers in 2018. We also had a first time winner in the six this division is sixteen-year-old Cole Howard. I had a cylinder class tonight who ran away and hid from the chance to talk with Cole and his family, which includes field to get that first win. Dad, Dan, who raced formerly at the Dells and at Columbus 151. “Dan said, “This just looked like a good Saturday brought a large amount of cars timing in, with division for Cole to get into, and it’s still affordable. I Doug Hornickel photo qualifying races and dashes for Big 8 cars, super lates, haven’t raced for 12 or 13 years now, so this is kind of American Short Trackers, and Great Northern new to me once again as well.” Cole is finishing up his Alex Prunty proved that last years’ victory in the Sportsman Series. The preliminaries were quite second year of racing, having raced a four-cylinder NSTC 200 lapper was no fluke, as he repeated the interesting, with many battles and some “paybacks” car last season before jumping into the mods this year. feat. He started a little further back in the pack this attempted, but in the end the rain won out. The AST year but wasted little time in finding his way back to feature was completed with George Sparkman getting The Mid-Am cars featured a strong field, with many the front to make it back-to-back wins in the the victory over a very fast and stout field, as usual veterans on hand. Ryan Gutknecht took the lead at the prestigious event. Casey Johnson made it interesting at front runners Franc Beldowski and Aaron Rude didn’t start, with Point leader Ron Vandermeir Jr. dropping the end, as he caught up to his bumper, but got no perform up to their usual standards, and Sparkman, out early in the race. Bill Prietzel made contact with further, while Brian Johnson Jr. ran strong all day, Brandon Delacy and Nick Cina Jr. looked very strong. Gutknecht, causing him to drift up the track, and from finishing third. Johnson said that he has been trying to there Prietzel guided the field to the win. Prietzel win this event for 20 years, and that this may be his The rain made itself be known, and then stopped, or admitted to the contact after, saying it was not last try at it, but we shall see. kind of stopped, allowing for a couple attempts of intentional, but Gutknecht basically said that he would drying the track. The track would start to show signs remember this sometime when the shoe might be on of drying, giving hope, only to have the light mist fall the other foot.