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Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Carlson holds off Cup stars to win at MIS

Steve Carlson

By JESSE OSBORNE | Lee Newspapers

TOWN OF RUTLAND — As it turned out, Steve Carlson’s mid-race worry was all for naught. After cruising to the lead and showing the dominant car going into the halfway break of Tuesday night’s The Swiss Colony All-Star Challenge at Madison International Speedway, the veteran driver from West Salem, Wis., thought some of his fellow competitors were holding something back for the second half of the 100-lap event.

“The first half of the race my car worked so good I didn’t realize it was that good,” Carlson said. “I just thought those guys were kind of laying back. We didn’t make any changes on the car at all and we were really good in the second half.”

So good, in fact, that even a caution with 12 laps to go that bunched the field and put NASCAR star and Cambridge, Wis., native Matt Kenseth on his rear bumper wasn’t enough to slow Carlson down en route to victory in front of a large crowd.

“This is cool. We don’t get many chances to race for this kind of purse or with this much talent,” said Carlson, who held off Kenseth for his fourth career Late Model victory at the half-mile oval. “Last year I was leading (this race) for a while, but I didn’t have a really good car. This year I had a really good car.”

Kenseth, who qualified ninth-fastest and started third after an 11-car field inversion, was well behind Carlson when the race’s third and final caution came out on Lap 88. That though, didn’t end up working in his favor.

“I thought that caution would help, but it actually didn’t really help my car,” Kenseth said. “After that caution I really couldn’t get going. I was tight in the middle (of the corner) and really loose off. I was doing everything I knew how to ever do here, I just couldn’t make it happen. I just didn’t have quite enough car to get it tonight.”

Indeed, Kenseth could never muster a serious run at Carlson during the final 12 laps, and was denied a chance for his fourth win at MIS in seven appearances since 2003.

“Steve is awesome,” Kenseth said. “He’s one guy when you’re catching him for the lead, no matter how much pressure you put on him, you know he’s not going to mess up. I’ve raced him so long, I know him. I knew exactly what he was going to do on the restart. I knew he was going to be on the bottom, I knew he was going to stop and make sure he was going to get off the corner good. I knew all that, anticipated it, and just made one hail mary on the outside to see if it would stick, and it didn’t stick.”

DeForest’s Andrew Morrissey finished third, Marshall native Nathan Haseleu was fourth and Necedah’s Travis Sauter rounded out the top five finishers. NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points leader Kyle Busch finished 12th after starting 10th, and two-time NASCAR Cup champion Tony Stewart finished 16th in his third start at MIS.

Stewart, who was the third-fastest qualifier and started ninth, was running 10th when he spun coming out of Turn 2 on Lap 39. That sent Stewart to the rear of the field and he wasn’t able to recover.

“I thought we were going to be a little better,” said Stewart, who finished eighth and seventh in his previous pair of outings at MIS. “When we spun I kept my foot in it, so that probably didn’t help us any on saving the rear tires.”

Despite the less-than-optimal finish, Stewart said he’s looking forward to coming back to MIS next season.

“It’s just a great group of race fans up here. This is an area where I ran sprint cars and midgets a lot and I’m fond of this area,” Stewart said. “As long as Matt and (event promoter Roy Kenseth) will have me back, I’ll keep coming back.

“I do enjoy it. I’ve got a lot to learn and a long way to get as good as Matt and a lot of these guys. I’ve never met a challenge I haven’t been willing to keep working at to conquer, so we’ll keep coming back and try to get better.”