Lucas Punkari
It may have taken a little bit longer than he would have liked, but Christopher Leek looks to be getting back into the groove at the Emo Speedway.
The defending WISSOTA Midwest Modified champ was the man to beat Saturday night at the 3/8th-mile oval as he cruised to commanding victories in both the heat and feature races.
“We’ve been running good so far this year, but we hadn’t had the results to show for it,” Leek noted.
“We had mechanical problems in the first race of the year [on May 21],” he explained.
“And on the second week of racing [May 28], we just couldn’t pull in [feature winner] Brady Caul as it was one of those tracks that you had to get the jump early to get the win.
“But tonight everything went great,” Leek smiled.
Starting the feature race in the second row, Leek blew past the front row of Anthony Visser and Brody Strachan as soon as the green flag dropped, then immediately began to pull away from the rest of the field.
After avoiding a spinning Strachan later in the race as he was trying to put him a lap down, Leek again left the pack in the dust en route to the win, with Chuck Lambert and Cody Ossachuk following him to the finish line.
“The number-one thing that I was trying to do tonight was to get out in front early, and to try and open up the gap,” he remarked.
“I was able to do just that, and I just tried to keep the thing going straight the rest of the way.”
Saturday’s win was one of two for Leek on the weekend. He also took the checkered flag at the Bemidji Speedway on Sunday evening.
“Our goal is to try and go and finish up near the front at every track that we go to,” noted Leek, who also runs in Grand Rapids, Mn. on Thursday nights.
“Running at these different places means everything for us as getting track time is the number-one thing to help us get better,” he stressed.
“It’s just like in hockey when you get extra ice time.”
Meanwhile, in the WISSOTA Modifieds, defending champ Gavin Paull continued his winning ways by capturing his third-straight feature victory of the season.
While his start might be viewed as similar to his 2011 season, when he won the first nine feature races, Paull was quick to point out that this year’s wins are a lot tougher to come by.
“This year we are actually trying a few more things in the heat races to get ready for those big races at the end of the year,” he explained.
“The heat race [where he finished in third behind winner Glen Strachan and runner-up Denny Trimble] wasn’t that bad of a result,” Paull added.
“But the car didn’t feel good, so we worked our butts off and changed a whole bunch of things back to what we knew before.
“Those changes worked pretty good, and I’m probably not going to be back to what I had in the heat race,” he smiled.
Like Leek, Paull started in the second row for the 20-lap feature, and was able to work around Trimble for top spot in Turns 3 and 4 of the second lap to take over the lead for good.
“I wasn’t sure where I was going to pass him, to be honest,” Paull admitted.
“After I got on the bottom of the track and started to get by him, I thought if I could slide up in front of him and take the position away, that I would be able to hang around where he was running for the rest of the race,” he noted.
Strachan, who was making his season debut with a brand new car, also worked by Trimble to finish in the runner-up spot.
And in the Street Stocks, Tylar Wilson, who is splitting driving duties with his daughter, Libby, returned behind the wheel of the #500 machine on Saturday night and capture his second feature win of the season.
“It was like riding a bicycle again, basically,” Wilson said of his return to the car.
“There were some dry spots around the track compared to when I drove the car last, but otherwise the track was basically the same,” he added.
After a coming out on the short end of a wheel-to-wheel duel with Richard Visser for first place in the heat, Wilson used the inside line to his advantage in the feature as he got past Wes Morriseau for the lead on the first lap and never looked back.
“We ran really well in the heat race, so we just left things alone set-up wise,” he explained
“In the heat race, we just couldn’t get any traction on the inside as it was a little bit slimier on the bottom.
“But in the feature, we were able to get around there pretty good,” Wilson added.
Following Wilson to the line were Visser and Carlee Bosma.
Racing action at the Emo Speedway will resume this Saturday (June 9), with hot laps at 7 p.m. and the first race at 7:30 (weather permitting).
