Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Sunday, August 19, 2007
Speedway races rained out
Chuck Deery waited, and waited some more. After growing tired of watching it rain Saturday morning and afternoon, he jumped his truck and took a spin around the pit area of the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway.
He should have had a boat.
“It was absolutely flooded in the pits,” said Deery, the Fairgrounds Speedway manager. “We are determined to get in each and every event for the competitors and the fans, but today it just wasn’t possible. Draining a giant bowl with one small drain, it wasn’t going to work.”
So for the second time in three weeks, races at the Fairgrounds Speedway were called off.
The wet August weather has created an interesting situation for race teams and for track management. The Fairgrounds Speedway is a NASCAR-sanctioned track, therefore is a member of the Whelen All-American Series. That series keeps season-long points standings, and West Salem’s Steve Carlson is in the thick of things for a national short-track championship.
Other drivers, such as Kevin Nuttleman, Mark Lamoreaux, and Andy Burgess are among the top 25 in the country, too. The catch is that to qualify, tracks need to have held 18 feature races.
With a total of three race programs rained out this season and only two left on the regular-season schedule, Fairgrounds Speedway drivers would finish with 17 events. To rectify that, Deery said the track will host two 20-lap Kwik Trip Late Model features next week, then split the originally scheduled 100-lap event on Sept. 1 into two separate 50-lap points races.
Deery said the Late Model features, however, will not be run back-to-back.
“Strategy will play a huge part of it now,” Deery said of the regular season’s final two weeks. “If a guy’s car is out to lunch in the first feature, we want to give them time to work on it before the second feature.”
The track’s other two other regular divisions, the North Country Contractors Sportsman Division and the United Auto Supply Thunderstox Division, will hold just one feature on each of the two remaining regular-season race nights.
Jeff Brown can be reached at (608) 791-8403, or e-mail at jbrown@lacrossetribune.com.
All stories copyright 2000 - 2006 La Crosse Tribune and other attributed sources.