May 31, 2017 at 1:00 p.m.
A night of sweeps at Eagle River Speedway
A night of sweeps at Eagle River Speedway
Racers who won the heats in all five the track's weekly classes parlayed that success into feature wins.
While the Eagle River area saw some rainfall earlier in the day, track officials had numerous vehicles compressing the evenly distributed moisture into the clay surface.
"This provided a lot of grip for the cars. We saw it by the different lines the drivers had to use when it came to passing," explained Kevin Dawson, Eagle River Speedway promoter.
The excellent conditions of the track gave the Memorial Day Weekend fans the chance to see a great race in the WISSOTA Pure Stock feature. Rhinelander's Jason Eisel started on the pole. Right next to him was Eagle River's Isabelle Valeria. Right behind them was Eagle River's Jake Ison. For 12 laps of the 15-lap feature, Valeria and Eisel raced side-by-side. The two constantly changed the lead, with Ison right on the bumper of both Eisel and Valeria.
With only three laps remaining and the 17-year-old Valeria in the lead, she drifted in the challenging hairpin third turn. This gave the lead back to Eisel.
That prompted Valeria to turn up the speed on the front stretch. Valeria got the lead back going into the deceiving first turn. However that forced Valeria's car to push hard to the outside between the first and "sweeping" second turn. When Valeria went high going into the second turn, Eisel made the pass to get the lead back.
During this exciting battle between Eisel and Valeria, Jake Ison was right on the bumper of the driver that was taking the low end of the track.
When the flag dropped, Eisel got the win, Valeria took second, and Ison was right on the bumper of Valeria.
The WISSOTA Midwest Modified feature appeared to be a lock for four-time defending class champion, Jesse Aho of Toivola, Michigan. That is until a caution late in the race put fellow Upper Peninsula racers Duane and Marcus Dunbar back into the race.
Aho got his lead back after the caution. Thus the attention of the fans went to watching the previous week feature winner, Marcus Dunbar, battle it out with his father, Duane, and Phelps driver Jerry Grasse. Aho went on to follow the groove he has worn down on the way to the victory lane. Grasse made some excellent moves to pass both Duane and Marcus to take second.
With the track holding the moisture for the entire night, another exciting race took place in the WISSOTA Street Stock feature. The defending class champion, Rhinelander's Ryan Valeria, battled it out with former class champion Dustin White of Conover. White was right on the tail of Valeria for the entire 20 laps. Though White had Valeria on the defensive, Valeria never blinked and held White off for the win.
Shiocton's Dylan Larson swept the 600 Winged Sprint class by holding off Deerbrook's Jerry Reif. The defending class champion, Ty Springer, was in Colorado competing in a major downhill skiing event, and Dylan's older brother, Denver, lost an engine a week earlier in the season opener.
"We brought a back-up car, but that broke doing hot laps the night before. We didn't know we had problems with that back-up until we got to the track," stated Denver Larson.
Boulder Junction's Peyton Towne is off to a fast start in the Junior Sprints.
The young man made his debut a success the previous week by winning the feature. Towne came back and proved that even though he is just starting his racing career, he will be the driver to beat this year. Towne swept both the feature and the heat.
The Sport-ATVs put on a great show as a special for the night. With 12 Quad's competing on the one-third mile track, two heats were run. Colton Zimmerman won the heat that the feature. Dylan Seis won the other heat.
"Those race-prepped Quads were flying around the track," Dawson said. "Even at the high speeds, they were racing tire to tire, side by side, throughout the race. What a show they put on!"
Racing returns to Eagle River Speedway this Friday night.
Next Friday, June 9, the track will hold its first round of the "Redneck Games" for the 2017 season, with one-on-one spectator racing.
Hot laps start at 7 p.m., with racing at 7:30.
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