Things don’t always go as well as planned.
Last week at the Shawano Speedway was a perfect example. Although the car counts were strong in every division and the stands were packed with fans and former racers as part of alumni night, the racing on the track was more often than not a race of attrition.
Three features were cut short in laps, reaching their allotted time limit.
On social media this week, a lot of blame was placed on the race track itself, citing a smooth slick racing surface for most of the night. This is the most common racing surface that weekly racers see in this area.
The track was tacky and fast two weeks ago, which is not the norm, and usually leads to numerous wrecks and cautions.
Some nights, there will be one division that has a hard time getting laps in due to cautions, but for every division to struggle is an oddity.
From my perspective, most of the multi-car wrecks were due to driver error.
As the season reaches the dog days of summer, it is common place for drivers to lose their cool and not give an inch to another driver, but it seems rather early in the year for this kind of activity.
Some racers, though, had themselves a great night.
Eau Claire racer Jake Redetzke, in his first visit to the track this summer, scored an impressive win against Nick Anvelink to win the $2,000 prize money in the Late Model feature. Thanks to cautions, there were times late in the 40-lap feature when Anvelink restarted in second place but Redetzke was able to quickly separate himself from Anvelink.
Jason Czarapata has raced part time this year but had a great couple of days last weekend. He scored a feature win at Luxemburg Speedway, claiming $5,000, Friday night and then followed up with a $1,000 win Saturday night at the Shawano Speedway. Czarapata donated $275 to Racing for a Reason in a classy move by a fan favorite.
The money paid to win both of those features was a definite bump in pay, and sometimes that’s all it takes for racers to race like there is a million dollars on the line to win.
This week every class is back to its regular payout, and hopefully that means there is a little more give and take on the track.
See you at the speedway.
