Rice Lake Speedway Wet; Special Events Upcoming

By Ed Reichert

Rice Lake WI, July 13 – The Rice Lake Speedway suffered its sixth rainout of the 2024 racing season on Saturday night, July 13^th. A inch of rain during the morning of the 13^th plus the combination of poor drying conditions due to lack of sun and wind plus high humidity all made it impossible to prepare the track and grounds for racing and the program was cancelled early in the afternoon. The program was scheduled to be a salute to the Barron County Fair and 4-H programming in the county, with the annual County Fair upcoming next weekend. With that being said, the speedway will be silent next week with the Fair in full swing.

While the speedway will now go through a twenty one day break since the last racing action on July 3^rd, when racing returns to the Rice Lake oval, the track will be hosting two very large events, back to back.

On Saturday night, July 27^th, the WISSOTA Late Models return for their second and final appearance of the 2024 racing season with a full program topped by a forty lap feature race paying two thousand dollars to the winner. A large field of the area’s best Late Model drivers are expected to be on hand for their last event at the track this year. Along with the Late Models, the Super Stocks, Midwest Modifieds and Pure Stocks will also be in action with each running a full program also. The Street Stocks and Modifieds will be off that night.

Then, on the following Tuesday night, July 30^th, the race that has made the Rice Lake Speedway famous, the Street Stock Little Dream race, will take place. This will be the thirtieth edition of this well known race and as such, track management is going all out to make this a memorable night of racing.

Last year’s winner Keith Tourville went home with over twenty nine thousand dollars for his efforts, thanks in large part to generous donations to the purse from race fans in attendance along with area businesses and on line donations and the hope is that this year that record will be smashed and the thirtieth edition of this race will see the winner taking home over thirty thousand dollars.

Presented by S & R Towing, this event will feature double heat races and last chance races, leading up to the main event with a $500 to win non qualifiers race for those drivers that don’t make the main event. Possibly sixty or more drivers from a five state area plus Canada are expected to be on hand for this race with many of WISSOTA’S Top Street Stock drivers to be in attendance, most of them having yet to crack victory lane at this “bucket list” event.

Pit gates will open at 4 pm on July 30^th with the spectator gates to open one hour later. The draw cut off and hot laps will be at 6:30 pm with racing to follow. The following night, July 31^st is reserved for a rain date. No pre registration is needed and as been track policy all year for the new owners, despite both these races being special events, regular Saturday night admission prices will be in effect.

The Rice Lake Speedway is located one mile North of Rice Lake midway between state highway 48 and Barron County highway SS. The track phone number is 715-236-2002. As these race dates approach, more information on both events can be gained by visiting the track website or the face book page for the speedway.