After thoroughly enjoying another successful Shiverfest on Saturday night I convinced my lovely wife Christine to get up early on Sunday and join me for the four hour drive north to Wisconsin for the First Annual Falloween 150 at Dells Raceway Park. This would be my first trip ever to the picturesque paved oval and we arrived just in time for the opening ceremonies on a bright sunny day where temperatures were pushing sixty degrees.
The facility was beautiful and the track is very wide with some nice banking in both the corners and the straights although the preferred line is definitely around the bottom. We were happy to spot my friends Kevin Feller, Doug Haack and Ed Reichert joining them in perfect seats in the aluminum stands high above turn one. A very nice field of more than 30 Super Late Models were on hand as well as 20+ Late Models and two divisions of Bandits although it appeared that several of the "regular" Bandits also ran in the "outlaw" Bandit feature.
Now granted, we were not here in time for qualifying so perhaps that is when I could have satisfied my need to know the driver's names and hometowns, but as the races rolled off the two announcers were much more conversational than informative as it was nearly impossible to hear what names were given over the motors. Even when the Super Late Model feature field was announced trackside no hometowns were given, something that I would think would be interesting even to the track's regular fans who might not know where some of these drivers pulled in from for today's special event.
Thankfully Ed, who is now a contributing writer here at Positively Racing with his One Fan's Travels, had been able to gather some names of the Late Model drivers earlier in the pit area plus Kevin dialed in Race Monitor to find those that even Ed could not come up with and I can give you a bit of a summary on that 50-lap preliminary race without just listing a car number.
Nick Nolden would race out to the early lead and stretched it out to a full straightaway before the caution waved on lap twenty-one. A second caution waved a lap later and on the restart Jesse Bernhagen was able to slip past Nolden for the lead. After looking so dominant early on I thought that Nolden might be able to mount a comeback, but even with cautions on laps 38 and 48 there was no touching Bernhagen who had started the race from the seventh position. Nolden would take the runner-up honors followed by Garrett Goodwin, Grant Griesbach and Dave Edwards.
The 150 lap Super Late Model finale had a tough first half. As the drivers were warming up their tires even before forming up for a start Andy Monday had a wheel come off sending him for a spin and his afternoon ended before it even started. Once under green it was pole-sitter Alex Prunty outdragging Ty Majeski into turn one to take the lead until lap nine when Dan Lensing tangled with Duke Long on the back stretch. The contact tore all of the front body work off of Lensing's car as he got hooked together with Long who spun in turn three, Then, as the field slowed, apparently Cory Jankowski and Brandon Hill were trading pleasantries when Jankowski slammed on the brakes causing Hill to plow into him from behind in turn one. The busted radiator on Hill's car left a long stream of fluid through turns one and two as he angrily drove his car into the infield and I would assume that it was one of Hill's crew members who then threw something at Jankowski's car as he drove down the back stretch under caution.
The cleanup process seemed to take forever as the shadows grew longer and the temperatures began to drop and finally after running in the oil dry we were able to get back to racing. A brief caution on lap 23 would give Majeski the opportunity to go work on Prunty for the lead and after a few laps of gradually making up ground on the second groove Majeski would take the lead around the outside on lap 28. On lap 64 the fifth place car of Dalton Zehr would spin down the front stretch to cause a caution and then on lap 67 Dennis Prunty got into the back of Mike Litchfield sending him for a spin in turn two as they raced for fourth. Litchfield who had started 13th on the grid was put back into the fourth spot for the restart when Prunty "tapped out" taking the blame for the caution and it would be him that would restart at the rear.
Eight laps later the caution would wave again for the ten minute mid-race break and since the first half had taken quite a long time I asked my wife if she was ready to head for home. Now keep in mind that this fantastic woman puts up with me going to more than sixty races a year and while she will sometimes join me, this was actually her first race of 2015. So I guess that it should not have been a surprise when she said, "We drove three thousand miles to come up here, why wouldn't we stay for the end??" So despite the fact that her mileage was off just a tad, she was absolutely right so I went out the car and grabbed us an extra blanket for the final 75-lap segment.
During the break both Litchfield and Dennis Prunty were interviewed and while Litchfield first praised Prunty for his sportsmanship, Prunty shortly after said the he was clearly under Litchfield and that he should have stayed up, "but whatever, we'll get him back". The driver currently running in third-place, Andrew Morrissey, was also interviewed and he felt that if he could wrestle second away from Alex Prunty that he might just have the car that could beat Majeski here this afternoon. Very prophetic!
On the restart Morrissey did take away second from Alex Prunty and he then tried to keep pace with the leader Ty Majeski. Majeski was able to maintain about a five car length cushion on his challenger, even as the leaders worked traffic, but when the lap counter clicked below 25 Morrissey started to close that gap. As Majeski tried to go around the lapped car of Jeff Storm, Morrissey took the chance of tucking in behind Storm in the lower groove and when Majeski couldn't make the pass of the lapper he soon found himself side-by-side with Morrissey. With just 15 laps remaining Morrissey got a nice run off of turn four and not only passed Majeski for the lead, but also jumped to the outside of Storm to put him a lap down and that would prove to be the winning move for the driver from DeForest, Wisconsin.
Majeski would hold on for the second spot ahead of Litchfield, Skylar Holzhausen would come from tenth to fourth and Dennis Prunty came from the back of the field to complete the top five. With the second half of the race running off in green to checkers fashion we were still on our way home around 5:30 making for a long day of driving and an enjoyable afternoon of racing at a track that, if I am ever in the area again on a race day, I would definitely go back to.
I have not yet had a chance to watch the Talladega race that I recorded on Sunday, but after seeing the highlights this morning I must say that I will find it very hard to be a Kevin Harvick fan going forward. Given the entire set of circumstances and, after seeing the video, how NASCAR cannot believe that his right hand turn into the left rear fender of Trevor Bayne was not intentional is about the stupidest ruling that I have seen in some time. I guess tearing up a lot of other people's equipment is worth it to "advance" in the Chase, so how do you like the format now?
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