Lucas Punkari
When the final book is written on the 2011 season of racing at the Emo Speedway, Saturday’s action-packed WISSOTA Midwest Modified feature might just have a chapter all of their own.
As many as five cars had a legitimate to shot to take the checkered flag during the 20-lap affair, but when the dust settled it was 2005 division champion John Hettinga who came away with the victory.
“That was a blast,” Hettinga enthused following his first feature triumph of the still young season.
“It was a really good race and I had a lot of fun during it,” Hettinga added.
After jumping into the lead early, Hettinga kept his car right to the bottom of the track in the turns, forcing defending division champion Brady Caul to try and overtake the leader on the high side.
At one point, Caul was able to sneak into the lead, but he would soon be held up by lapped traffic, which in turn led to Hettinga taking the top spot back and also allowing Tylar Brown to enter the fray.
But near the halfway point of the race, Brown made contact with Hettinga as he tried to take over the lead in turn four, which resulted in him suffering a flat right front tire and also ending his chances of getting a second feature victory of the season.
The race for the top spot would remain a three car affair, as Christopher Leek worked his way into the mix in the middle of the racetrack, resulting in the leading trio of drivers running different lines as they jostled for position.
With two laps remaining, the yellow flag came out when Ethan Firth looped his car around in turns one and two, setting the stage for a green-white-checkered finish.
It was around this point that Caul, who had won the division’s second heat race earlier that evening, noticed that his car was starting to run differently than it had during the rest of the main event, which seemingly reduced his chances of taking home the checkered flag.
“It’s hard to tell at this point what exactly it was, but I think we had some fuel boiling in the carburetor,” Caul explained.
“Just before that last restart, the car started to run really rough, and I had to baby it across the finish line,” Caul, who finished the race in fourth place, added.
With only two laps to go, Leek had a limited amount of time to try and take the lead away from Hettinga, and immediately set about trying to go lower than the leader was in turn three and four.
It may have looked like an aggressive move from up in the grandstands, but the race leader knew that he wouldn’t be knocked out of the way.
“I was really glad that it was Chris there behind me, because I know that he drives a clean race,” Hettinga reasoned.
As both cars raced out of turn four towards the checkered flag, Leek was again trying to sneak by Hettinga on the inside, but with Hettinga’s machine inching closer to his, Leek was forced to make a split-second decision.
“I had to steer the car down in order to avoid having my left front crushed, and it was at that point that I decided, ‘I’m going to have to hit the brakes,” Leek explained.
“When you are on the berm like I was, you have to turn the car to the right because it’s trying to hold you in, and when it finally lets you go, your wheels are turned and it kicks out,” Leek added.
With his car then jumping back to the right, Leek found himself trying to regain control of his out-of-control machine, while Hettinga made his way to the finish line.
Behind him though, Leek was nearly dead sideways on the front stretch, with heat one race winner Chuck Lambert sneaking past to take home the second spot, while Leek was able to wrestle control of his machine to come home in third.
“I know it looked a little spectacular but I managed to save it,” Leek smiled.
“I was trying for the win there at the end, but third place is not bad,” Leek added.
As for Lambert, his second place showing was quite impressive, as he had to restart at the rear of the field following a lap one tangle with Ken Perry in turns three and four.
“I just decided to take it easy for the first couple of laps to make sure that nothing was wrong with the front end,” Lambert, who leads Leek by eight points in the division standings, explained.
“Honestly, I was just going for second at the end there, and if Chris hadn’t of wiped out at the end, I would have been third.
“I guess it was pretty close with us there on the front stretch, but I just let off the throttle as he was spinning out, and away I went,” Lambert reasoned.
While it seemed that the entire field was seemingly gaining up on him to try and take the victory, Hettinga seemed to hardly noticed the chaos that was surrounding him from all directions.
“You really don’t see everybody when you are up front there,” Hettinga stressed.
“But it was pretty cool to have a battle like that, and they all raced me clean, which was nice,” Hettinga added.
Paull still perfect in
WISSOTA Modified features
Despite not picking up the checkered flag for the first time this season in the heat race, WISSOTA Modified driver Gavin Paull was able to bounce right back in the feature, as he captured his third victory of the season.
“In the heat race we were a little bit off,” Paull, who finished second to the Glen Strachan in that affair, explained.
“We had the wrong shocks and stuff so we struggled a bit, but in the feature, everything was working well again,” Paull added.
Early on, Paull found himself in a three-wide battle with both Strachan and Dwayne Pihulak for the top spot, before moving out in front for good after a couple of laps.
“I didn’t really know where to go at first,” Paull stressed.
“Dwayne was running really good on the bottom, and I thought that was the preferred line, so once I got ahead of him I was able to take the line away.
“It’s pretty hard to pass someone where there is only one groove out there,” Paull reasoned.
Unlike recent weeks where Paull would lay a whipping on the field, the rest of the pack was able to stay relatively close to the division’s pace-setter, as Pihulak and Strachan were only a few car lengths behind when the race reached it’s conclusion.
“I would say that it’s starting to get closer out there,” Paull said.
“It’s hard to judge how hard you should go once you get out in front, but I would definitely say that the competition is getting better,” Paull added.
Meanwhile in the Street Stocks, Bemidji’s Don Bowman made a clean sweep of the proceedings, as he captured the checkered flag in both the heat and the feature.
Bowman, who is the division points leader, made his way by Carlee Bosma with only a couple laps remaining to win the heat race, and then held off a frantic final charge from Lindsay Bourre to take home the victory in the 15 lap main event.
Richard Visser finished the feature in third position.
With Canada Day on Friday, the track will be holding action on July 1 to coincide with events taking place in Emo during the course of the day.
As per usual, the green flag is set to drop at 7:30 p.m.
