Doar, Nelson, Treviranus, Schelitzche Open Fair Week with Wins at GLS
by Nick Gima
Superior, WI, July 30 – The first of two nights of racing as part of the Head of the Lakes Fair was held on Tuesday at the Gondik Law Speedway, with landmark wins achieved in all four features on a hot, muggy night with temperatures hovering near 90 by race time.
New Richmond’s Pat Doar took the checkers at the end of the 25-lap KME Late Model Series main event for WISSOTA Late Models, pocketing $1,500 in the process. The all-time winningest Late Model driver in the Superior track’s history started outside on the front row and stayed side-by-side with polestarter Skeeter Estey for the first full lap, followed closely Billy Kendell, Dave Flynn, Kevin Burdick and others. But as the leaders set up for turn 1 for the second time, Estey’s car looked to plant into the sticky surface, causing his car to launch into the air, pirouetting and barrel-rolling multiple times before crashing onto the track directly in front of the vast majority of the field.
Safety crews responded quickly to the scene of the incident, and Estey was treated and then taken to a hospital in Hibbing, MN, near his hometown of Kelly Lake, where he received further treatment for injuries and is recovering as of this writing.
After a 20-minute red-flag stop, Doar led the field back to the restart and a long green-flag run. Kendall restarted second and opted for the outside lane in row 2, but at the end of lap 2 his car slipped high going through turn 4, allowing Flynn, who restarted third, to dive low and steal the position.
Doar spent the rest of the first ten laps of the run virtually in cruise mode, building a lead of nearly two seconds, but as he began to deal with backmarkers starting on lap 11 his lead would be thinned to less than a second by Flynn.
After escaping through the slower traffic, Doar had plenty of open track ahead of him as the laps wound down, but Eric Lillo’s spun racer in front of the turn 2 pit exit set up a green-white-checkered finish. Flynn and Kendall kept each other just busy enough to allow Doar to draw away to a three-quarter-second margin of victory and his track-leading 56th Late Model feature win at Superior.
Burdick survived an entertaining race-long battle with Danny Vang for fourth. Doar moves into a tie for the points lead with Johnny Broking as the KME Series season heads for what could be a thrilling conclusion.
Darrell Nelson of Hermantown, MN, is the track’s all-time WISSOTA Modified feature wins and total feature wins leader, and he, too, added to his marks by leading Tuesday’s 20-lap feature flag-to-flag for his 73rd “big Mod” win here and victory number 115 overall.
After a lap 2 spin by visiting Steve Stavenger, Kevin Adams applied some pressure on Nelson on the restart, diving low to take the lead, but fourth-running Bob Broking’s spun ride slowed the pace again. Adams tried the high side one lap after the re-do, but Nelson held true to form and continued out front, pushing is lead out to over a second-and-a-half while Adams car failed him on lap 5.
The field followed Nelson back to green for another restart, and while they could not catch the “Hermantown Hammer,” they put on an entertaining show behind him. Jody Bellefeuille restarted second and tried to keep pace with the leader; Brandon Copp, who had originally started the race tenth, used a thread-the-needle move between Tanner Gehl and Brady Uotinen to take fourth on lap 6; and Copp threatened third-running Jack Rivord for several mid-race laps.
Bellefeuille had trimmed some of Nelson’s 1.25-second lead away when Uotinen’s racer broke on the front straight with four laps remaining. Back under green, Bellefeuille took one last shot at the lead with an inside move, but Nelson stormed back within the circuit and ran off to a 1.48-second margin of victory. Rivord fended off Copp for third, and Brady’s dad Al Uotinen, who started 12th, worked his way past Andrew Inman late in the run for fifth.
In the non-stop 12-lap WISSOTA Pure Stock feature, Hawthorne’s Tom Treviranus ran away late to tally his first-ever feature win at his home track, against a field that included his son Trevor and daughter Jessie.
Polestarter Jake Smith lead a tight-knit pack through the early stages of the run, and although Trevor Treviranus’ car failed him on lap 2, Smith still had Tom Treviranus and Aaron Bernick side-by-side just behind him and Jessie Treviranus right on their back bumpers.
On lap 5 the senior Treviranus made his move to the outside on Smith and Bernick dove low, and within the next lap Treviranus had cleared both to take over the lead. Smith settled into second, but only for a lap as his car gave up on lap 7 and he pulled out of the race. With her dad driving away to a lead of over a second, Jessie Treviranus kept the pressure on Bernick, threatening on a couple of occasions to take the runner-up position.
Tom Treviranus took the win by 1.841 seconds, while Bernick held on to finish second just ahead of Jessie Treviranus, who joined her father on the victory stage to celebrate the landmark win.
It seems like every time Justin Schelitzche of Chaska, MN, shows up at a Northland track this Summer, he leaves it with a feature winner sticker in hand. This held true on Tuesday in Superior as he fought to lead all 12 laps for his 14th career WISSOTA Hornets A-main win here – tying him for first on the track’s all-time win list in this division with the driver he held off to beat.
Schelitzche grabbed the immediate lead from the pole and pulled away from a fierce battle for second between Carson Gotelaere and DeJay Jarecki, which in turn put some distance between those combatants and the close pack racing for fourth, led by Riley Ament. Jarecki had just snuck by Gotelaere on lap 3 when Brady Fosso’s car slowed to a stop on the front straight with issues.
On the restart the lead trio sped away to put on a thrilling bumper-to-bumper show for the fans, leaving Nikota Larson and Ament trailing at a distance. Gotelaere seemed to back off for a bit as Jarecki tried a couple of different moves to take the lead, but Schelitzche was well up to the challenge, and Gotelaere regrouped to make one last run at the win. In the end, Schelitzche finished with Jarecki on his trunklid and Gotelaere just as close behind Jarecki. Larson stayed a distant fourth ahead of Ament.
A couple of interesting sidenotes to Tuesday’s program: A surprise visitor to the Hornets’ entry list was Jasper Drengler of Shawano. Drengler had stated that he had been wanting to race on the big northwestern Wisconsin oval for some time and, driving a car he had just purchased the day before, made the over six-hour trip to Superior and competed.
Also, it was learned that World of Outlaw Late Model star Tim McCready of New York was in the pit area during the program offering some help to Pat Doar, while after the race program another national tourer, Louisiana’s Cade Dillard, was allowed some quick laps under the lights to shake-down his WoO racer.
The Gondik Law Speedway will host WISSOTA Super Stocks, Midwest Modifieds, Pure Stocks and Hornets during the Head of the Lakes Fair’s program on Friday, August 2. Hot laps will start at 6:30 pm, followed by racing at 7. For more information on this event, log on to the track’s website, www.gondiklawspeedway.com or check out its FaceBook page,
Results
WISSOTA Late Models
Feature: 1-10: Pat Doar, New Richmond; Dave Flynn, Superior; Billy Kendall III, Walker, MN; Kevin Burdick, Proctor, MN; Danny Vang, Deerwood, MN; Johnny Broking, Grand Rapids, MN; Travis Budisalovich, St Paul, MN; Jeff Massingill, Keewatin, MN; Darrell Nelson, Hermantown, MN; Robbie Cooper, South Range.
11-16: Mike Klippenstein, Proctor, MN; Eric Lillo, Proctor, MN; Keith Niemi, Gilbert, MN; Steve Laursen, Cumberland; Jayme Lautigar, Gilbert, MN; Skeeter Estey, Kelly Lake, MN.
Heat 1: Flynn; Laursen; Vang; Burdick; Broking; Lautigar; Cooper; Niemi.
Heat 2: Estey; Kendall; Doar; Massingill; Klippenstein; Nelson; Lillo, Budisalovich.
WISSOTA Modifieds
Feature: 1-10: Darrell Nelson, Hermantown, MN; Jody Bellefeuille, Carlton, MN; Jack Rivord, Superior; Brandon Copp, Brule; Al Uotinen, Superior; Bob Broking, Grand Rapids, MN; Andrew Inman, Canyon, MN; Shaun Kreyer, Hayward; Brady Uotinen, Superior; Rick Rivord, Superior.
11-13: Tanner Gehl, Solon Springs; Steve Stavenger, Gilbert, MN; Kevin Adams, Cameron.
Heat 1: J Rivord; Bellefeuille; Broking; Gehl; B Uotinen; Stavenger; Kreyer.
Heat 2: R Rivord; Nelson; Adams; Inman; Copp; A Uotinen.
WISSOTA Pure Stocks
Feature: 1-5: Tom Treviranus, Hawthorne; Aaron Bernick, Duluth, MN; Jessie Treviranus, Superior; Jake Smith, Cohasset, MN; Trevor Treviranus, Hawthorne.
Heat: Tom Treviranus; Bernick; Smith; Jessie Treviranus; Trevor Treviranus; Shane Basina, Bayfield.
WISSOTA Hornets
Feature: 1-10: Justin Schelitzche, Chaska, MN; DeJay Jarecki, Ashland; Carson Gotelaere, Superior; Nikota Larson, Barnum, MN; Riley Ament, Mahtowa, MN; Ryan LaBorde, South Range; Cade Johnson, Iron, MN; Abby Baum, Superior; Brady Fosso, Hibbing, MN; Joseph Puidokas, Cloquet, MN.
11: Jasper Drengler, Shawano.
Heat 1: Gotelaere; Jarecki; Larson; Puidokas; LaBorde; Baum.
Heat 2: Schelitzche; Ament; Johnson; Fosso.