One of my goals each year is to add a new track to my list of those that I have seen a race at and with a family trip to visit my aunt and uncle's lake house in northeast Michigan this past weekend, I knew that this would be my best chance for 2025. Originally my sights were set on Merritt Speedway, but after noting that it would be nearly a two hour drive from the house in Harrisville, I started to look at another option. The quarter-mile paved oval Whittemore Speedway was an hour shorter drive and their biggest race of the year was on tap making the decision even easier.
After enjoying the best chicken gizzards that I have ever tasted at the Hard Hat Tavern a bit north of the speedway, my uncle Dennis, my brother Kurtis and I made our way in to "Michigan's Oldest Continuous Speedway Since 1948" for the Growler 100 featuring the Outlaw Super Late Models. A large crowd filed in on a beautiful evening for racing and qualifying for the Late Models started right at 7 p.m.. Heat races for the Legend Cars and the Front Wheel Drives followed and then most of the Late Models came to the track for a half hour autograph session that seemed to be well timed with the sun dropping below the tree line beyond turns three and four.
The Legend Car feature would serve as an appetizer before the 100 lap headliner and with the twelve car invert being drawn by quick qualifier and defending Growler 100 champion Blake Childers, I assumed that we would be treated to a few lead changes along the way. Pole-sitter Jason Felver had other ideas though as he would jump out to a big lead during each green flag segment and even though Childers would get to second late and would try to get a nose under the leader on a restart without about fifteen laps remaining, Felver would not only hold him off but would again start to stretch it out as he scored the $7,500 victory. Childers would have to settle for the runner-up position, John King started seventh and finished third, Chase Rosebrugh who has already posted at least four wins in his dirt Modified this season showed his versatility in fourth and Justin Claucherty took fifth. Another name that I recognized from the dirt Late Model ranks was Chad Finley who drove a team car to Rosebrugh to a sixth place finish.
The race had its fair share of cautions and a couple of red flags where cars had gone off the end of turn three and had to be retrieved. And on one of the cautions it looked like track officials had a hard time determining who should be penalized as the cars circled the track for nearly twenty laps before a realignment could be set. While this was a bit frustrating for my trio, the rest of the crowd did not seem fazed so maybe I'm just a bit spoiled by how things are done here in my area.
Along with my goal of getting to a new track each year I also love to go to at least one pavement show for a few reasons. One is that I love seeing how clean and straight the cars are, two is that the smell of hot rubber and the exhaust is different from the scent of a dirt track and, three, is that the racing more often than not reminds me of how lucky I am to be based in the heart of dirt track racing! The Whittemore Speedway satisfied both of my annual goals in one night as it becomes track number 222 in 25 different states and now joins the Galesburg Speedway, the I-96 Speedway and Thunderbird Speedway as my stops in Michigan.
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| Growler 100 Winner Jason Felver - From the Whittemore Speedway Facebook page |
This is the second year in a row that I have subscribed to DirtVision and I believe that I get my money's worth just in following the UMP Summer Nationals. For the most part the racing has been enjoyable and it is fun to watch the wide range of drivers that roll in and out of the intense schedule of races. It has been interesting to watch just how much the track prep, and efforts to rework the surface as the night wears on effects each show. As my friend Gary Lee noted from his seat at the track, the heat races at the Springfield Raceway were four of the best that you will see anywhere on the tour and promoter Jerry Hoffman did not rest on his laurels with the preliminaries as he continued to tickle the surface to provide an entertaining feature race as well.
On Tuesday night at Benton I dialed it up in time to catch the last couple of heat races and it was follow the leader around the bottom. To their credit though, the track prep team spent nearly an hour trying to give the fans a good race and they did just that with entertaining features for both the Late Models and the Modifieds. Last night I got home from dinner with my lovely wife around 8:45 and thought that I would pick up the show from Spoon River around Last Chance Showdown time and instead they were in the final ten laps of the Late Model feature. The track was locked down and one lane around the bottom with Tyler Erb tucking in behind a car at the back of the field and holding his line to take the win. The Modified feature looked like it might get a bit interesting by getting into traffic a couple of times, but cautions for spins would wipe that out and Tyler Nicely also paced a single file procession to the checkers.
A couple of weeks ago, apparently social media went off on the Kankakee Speedway for running a late show that included a couple of track reworks during its Hell Tour stop and perhaps the promoters at Spoon River had set a goal to not run late? Don't get me wrong, I am never a fan of a late running show, but if a big part of the reason is because you reworked the track to give me a better feature, then I am usually just fine with that. With eighteen events already in the books, the Summer Nationals still has nine more shows to run over the next ten days and while my chances of watching any of them live will be little, you can bet that I will be dialing up the replays whenever I get the chance.
Speaking of social media, we are once again at that point in the season where promoters and the leaders of sanctioning bodies feel compelled to defend themselves from people bitching on Facebook. Once again I will offer up the same advice that I gave just over a year ago in The Internet Is Full of Meanies:
I believe that race promoters need to use social media to promote their events and provide any necessary updates in regard to weather, etc., but then just "step away" from it.
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