by Ed Reichert

Rice Lake WI, July 27 – Chad Mahder has had good success over the years at the Rice Lake Speedway. Despite the Late Models racing at the track on a very limited basis for a number of years, Chad, following in the footsteps of his late father Duane, has always run well at Rice Lake and has gathered a number of feature wins and special event wins over the years.

After having a rocky run at another track on Friday night, Chad and his crew went to work on Saturday to repair their MB chassis and get it ready for the Solution Heating and Cooling 30 Saturday night at the Rice Lake Speedway and their reward was a wire to wire victory in the main event.

Having earned the second highest total of passing points in heat race action, Chad would start on the outside pole for the thirty lap feature race but with a quick burst of speed, he got the jump on pole sitter John Kaanta and quickly went to work, opening up a several car length lead early.

While Kaanta slipped into second and tried to chase down Mahder, the driver on the move was Sam Mars. White hot lately with a couple of big wins in the last week, Sam didn’t have the best of heat races and started sixth in the feature race.

However, he quickly made up for that lackluster starting position, moving past Paul Niznik and then Rick Hanestad to take the third spot and he then began to chase the two leaders.

Mahder was dialed in on this night though, and as hard as Kaanta was pushing, he wasn’t able to shorten up the lead that Mahder held. The track was in flawless condition on this hot and humid night, but none of the drivers seemed to be able to find that groove that would speed them up to the point that they would catch anyone they were chasing. Mars was also pushing hard but he too couldn’t seem to close the gap that Kaanta had on him.

Mahder was locked in and there was no catching him as he continued to hold about a three second advantage over Kaanta. Chad had one scary moment late in the race as while trying to overtake the slower car of Tony Bahr, they briefly got together both exiting turn two and again exiting turn four but Mahder was able to recover and not loose much time while Bahr headed for the infield.

The race would go nonstop and Mahder finished up with that three second lead over Kaanta with Mars settling for third. Hanestad and Niznik would complete the top five at the finish with only two starters not on the track at the finish.

Chad earned two thousand dollars for his win in the Solution Heating and Cooling 30 which was his twelfth career feature win in the Late Model class at Rice Lake.

The entire Late Model portion of Saturday night’s program was completed very smoothly with just a single yellow flag during one of the heat races slowing the action.

This was the final appearance of the WISSOTA Late Models at the track in 2024.

7/27/2024
Rice Lake Speedway

10 entries

WISSOTA Late Model

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Solution Heating andCooling 30 A Feature 1 (30 Laps): 1. 55C-Chad Mahder[2]; 2. 85-John Kaanta[1]; 3. 28-Sam Mars[6]; 4. 71H-Rick Hanestad[3]; 5. 42-Paul Niznik[4]; 6. 71JR-Buddy Hanestad[5]; 7. 68-Mike Prochnow[7]; 8. 51-Randy Gullixson[8]; 9. (DNF) 57-Tony Bahr[10]; 10. (DNF) 92-Aaron Wilson[9]

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 55C-Chad Mahder[1]; 2. 42-Paul Niznik[2]; 3. 71JR-Buddy Hanestad[5]; 4. 51-Randy Gullixson[4]; 5. (DQ) 57-Tony Bahr[3]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 85-John Kaanta[2]; 2. 71H-Rick Hanestad[4]; 3. 28-Sam Mars[3]; 4. 68-Mike Prochnow[5]; 5. 92-Aaron Wilson[1]