Lucas Punkari
For Fort Frances driver Libby Wilson, the 2012 season at the Emo Speedway is one she’ll remember for many years to come.
Not only did she pick up her first career feature victory on Aug. 4, the Street Stock driver also become the first female to win an individual points title in the track’s history.
Trudy Engels split driving duties with Richard Visser to capture the Street Stock title back in 2006.
“I am very excited about being able to do that,” Wilson enthused.
“To be the first girl to win a points title here is pretty amazing, and it’s also nice to say that I was able to beat all of the boys,” she joked.
While her dad, Tylar, filled in on a couple of occasions, Libby was behind the wheel for most of the season. She eventually built up enough of a cushion to capture the division crown by 43 points over Chris Shine.
“The car was good right from the start of the year, but it was the driver that was getting better and better out there,” she laughed.
The championship officially was clinched Saturday night as Wilson worked her way from the back of the field to win the heat, ending any chance Shine had of making a comeback.
“Tonight was a pretty exciting night for me as I had never been able to work my way from the back of the pack to the front before,” she noted.
“I felt pretty confident going into the night but most of the nights my confidence got the best of me, especially when it came time for the features,” she admitted.
“But on the night I was able to make a clean sweep here earlier this month, I kept a level head and pulled it off, which was what I did tonight.”
Wilson’s season behind the wheel also came to an end Saturday night as she’s getting ready to head back to Thunder Bay to continue her schooling.
But she already is looking forward to next season, although she’s not sure what class she’ll be competing in.
“My dad is currently trying to talk me into running the Midwest Modified that he ran here last year,” Wilson noted.
“But I’m not sure if I want to move up just yet as I’m just starting to comfortable in this car,” she smiled.
Out of the three division point races at the Emo Speedway this season, the tightest title fight was in the WISSOTA Modifieds, where Gavin Paull edged out Denny Trimble by a slim three-point margin.
Having entered the night trailing Trimble by only two points, Paull did exactly what he needed to do in order to capture his second-straight title and his fourth overall—taking the checkered flag in both the heat and feature races.
“I had the car in the garage all week long and we worked on it from front to back to get ready for tonight,” he noted.
“We had struggled a little bit on the Saturday night at the fair, and Jamie Davis [who originally built the chassis for Paull] came over this week to work on the car and it really made things better.”
Although the points chase was very tight, Paull was the man to beat throughout the summer as he captured a track-best nine feature wins.
“In all honesty, there wasn’t really a night that stood out for me as they were all really special,” he remarked.
“Every night was a ton of fun, and I love going fast around here, so that made for a pretty good year,” Paull smiled.
With a couple of races slated for this weekend in Proctor and Hibbing that he’ll be attending, in addition to some other year-end specials, Paull will be busy behind the wheel before the year comes to an end.
However, he already has an idea of what he would like do come next year.
“I’ve been talking to Jamie Davis recently about building a new Larry Shaw chassis and making that into a USMTS car with an open motor, and
hopefully we can make some of the races down there,” Paull noted.
The one title that already had been clinched prior to Saturday’s action was in the WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds, where Christopher Leek took home the title for a second-straight season.
Buoyed by three feature wins and a number of strong showings throughout the summer, Leek cruised to the championship by 53 points over Cody Ossachuk.
“I’m really happy with how the year went, but I honestly thought that we could have done a little bit better,” Leek admitted.
“We had a lot of top three finishes, including a lot of feature races where we had a chance to win,” he recalled.
“But that just shows that you can’t rest up and you need to keep working on the car to keep improving,” he stressed.
For now, Leek has yet to determine what he’ll do for the 2013 campaign as he’s currently focused on a number of year-end specials that will be taking place over the coming weeks.
“Next weekend will be a busy one with a number of two-day shows because of the Labour Day holiday, so we will probably head to one of those,” he noted.
“Then there’s the WISSOTA 100 in Huron, S.D. in a couple of weeks, and there’s going to be a lot of cars at that one on the big half-mile,” added Leek.
“So hopefully we can make it down for that.”
