Lucas Punkari
Over the course of his season-and-a-half dominance in the WISSOTA Modified division at the Emo Speedway, Gavin Paull usually has had an easy time of things when it came down to the feature race each week.
This past Saturday night, however, Paull faced arguably his toughest test in a long time—passing Steve Nordin for top spot with only three laps to go to capture his sixth feature of the season.
“I would admit that this was one of the hardest races I’ve had in a while,” Paull remarked.
“It was a one-lane race track out there, and that made it hard to pass on the bottom part of the track,” he noted.
“I could get up beside him [Nordin], but I just couldn’t complete the pass until the end.”
After coming out on top in a spirited battle with Nordin in the heat earlier that evening, Paull was running in third during the middle part of the feature when he had to avoid the spinning second-place car of Glenn Strachan in Turn #1.
“I was a couple of feet away from him at least,” Paull recalled.
“Everyone was just going hard there for position and Glenn just went a little too deep. And when he got on the gas there, he ended up spinning it around,” he explained.
As the laps wound down, Paull kept trying to get by Nordin on the inside part of the track, and actually had taken the lead on the frontstretch with four laps left.
But behind the leaders, Tyler Brown looped his car around in Turn #4 to bring out the caution flag, which meant Paull would have to complete the pass on Nordin once again as the running order was reverted to the last completed lap.
“When I got by him on the frontstretch before that caution came out, I was counting down the laps left in my head and figured that there was about four or five remaining,” Paull noted.
“I knew on that ensuing restart that I had to get a little aggressive to try and make my move,” he stressed.
When the green flag waved, Paull again worked his way to the inside and was able to make the pass stick as he powered by Nordin coming out of Turn #2 to grab a lead he would not relinquish.
“He [Nordin] went into Turn 1 a little hot and he just had to check up a little bit, which gave me the run that I needed to get by him,” Paull said.
“I had to squeeze him a little, though, coming out of the turn as I wanted to make sure that I could get the position,” he added.
Nordin crossed the finish line in second place while division points leader Denny Trimble took third.
In WISSOTA Midwest Modified action Saturday night, Brady Caul proved to be untouchable as soon as his car came off the trailer, cruising to dominant wins in both the heat and feature races.
“It was a pretty good evening overall,” Caul smiled. “The track was smooth, the car was running awesome, and everything worked out good.
“I just would like to thank my dad [Jim] for working on the car this week as I was busy working,” he noted.
During the feature, Caul made a daring three-wide pass for the lead early on, splitting the gap between the top two cars of Ken Perry and Matt DePiero as they raced out of Turn #2.
“That was a tight one, for sure,” Caul said his of slick driving manoeuvre.
“Both Ken and Matt are pretty good drivers and I didn’t know how I was going to get by them both,” he admitted.
“I was waiting for an opening and when I tried it the first time, it didn’t work out, so I just had to wait for the right time to make my move.”
Caul then worked his way around lapped traffic in pulling away from points leader Christopher Leek and DePiero en route to Victory Lane.
“It was hard on that track to get by guys as it was pretty much a one-lane track by the end of it,” he noted.
“I just about lost control of the car one time there late, and that scared me a little bit, so you had to watch out for who you were coming up towards and to also judge the speed that you were catching them,” he stressed.
Finally, while the Street Stock car count was down to just four cars Saturday night, the action still was very tight throughout as Richard Visser earned his first feature win in a couple of years.
“It’s nice to be back in Victory Lane again,” he smiled.
“I would have liked to have been going up against a few more cars tonight, but a win is a win and this feels pretty good.”
Having taken the lead early on, Visser stayed on the high side of the track all race long and was able to hold off a hard-charging Libby Wilson, who had won the heat earlier in the evening.
“I wasn’t sure what the track was like down low, and especially with how much traction there was going to be down there,” Visser explained.
“So I just wanted to keep the car up high there, and just keep the momentum going.”
Kyle Godin rounded out the podium in the feature, with Chris Shine finishing fourth.
Action will resume at the Emo Speedway this Saturday night, with hot laps starting at 7 p.m. and the first race at 7:30 p.m. (weather permitting).
