Lucas Punkari
As 23-year-old Tyler Brown prepared to start his fourth season of racing at the Emo Speedway on Saturday night, the Rainy River driver had yet to earn a checkered flag in his career.
That goose egg became a thing of the past once the season-opener concluded, however, as Brown captured both his heat and the feature event in the WISSOTA Modified division.
“It feels really good right now,” Brown said afterwards.
“This is something that I have never experienced before, and I can’t really explain the emotions that I have at the moment,” he admitted.
With his car running strong as soon as he pulled it off the trailer, Brown started the night with a dramatic heat triumph—passing Glen Strachan heading into Turn 1 on the final lap.
“The cautions that we had in the race slowed things down a bit, and that was a little bit of an issue for me as I trying to build up some momentum to get by Glen,” Brown recalled.
“I was trying to hold my line on the bottom and I was getting a little bit faster as the race went on, and I was running a little bit harder as well to get up there,” he added.
Then in the feature race, Brown drove past Steve Nordin in the opening laps and steadily pulled away from the field during the course of the 20-lap affair on his way to victory.
“I was just really focusing on trying to hit my marks when I was in the lead there towards the end,” Brown noted.
“I was just wanting to maintain my pace and just wanted to hold my line until the checkered flag came out.”
Nordin wound up finishing in second place, with Gary Wilson taking third.
The most exciting feature of the night took place in the WISSOTA Midwest Modified division as heat winners Chuck Lambert and Christopher Leek battled for the checkered flag.
After taking the lead from Tylar Wilson midway through the main event, Lambert had to withstand a number of pass attempts by Leek during the late stages of the race.
With a couple of laps to go, Leek used the inside line to get by Lambert for the lead. But a spin further back in the field meant Lambert got the lead spot back as the running order reverts back to the previously-completed lap.
Then on the final restart, Lambert made sure to protect the inside line as much as he could as Leek was unable to get around him for the win.
“It finally clicked on me that I should take away his line, so I went to the bottom on the restart and away we went,” Lambert smiled.
“My main focus in those final laps was to protect the bottom, but I really should have been doing that earlier in the night,” he admitted.
John Hettinga crossed the finish line in third.
In the Street Stocks, meanwhile, Ron Westover earned a clean sweep of his own by winning both the heat and the feature.
Although just four cars competed in the season-opener, the action was hotly-contested, which is something Westover enjoyed while behind the wheel.
“In the first couple of laps in our heat race, we were all running side-by-side all of the way around the track,” he noted.
“I was thinking to myself at that point, ‘If we can keep this up, this is going to be a really good show for the fans,’ and I hoped that they enjoyed it,” he added.
Kendal Gamsby, Jeff Wickstrom, and Tyler Wickstrom rounded out the field.
Racing will resume this Saturday (weather permitting), with hot laps at 7 p.m. and the first heat at 7:30.
