Amsoil Speedway Hosts Sprint Cars & Pure Stocks

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Aug 18

Wes Vork-NSO

SUPERIOR, WI – Dave Blaney took the lead at the halfway point and held on for the victory in the 30 lap All Star Circuit of Champions Sprint Car race at Amsoil Speedway in Superior on Thursday night. Dustin Follett of Cloquet edged out Austin Blom by a bumper at the checkered flag to win the 1st Annual Pure Adrenaline Pure Stock Invitational to claim the victory and accompanying $500.00 paycheck.

The races were run on Thursday night after a rain forced cancellation on Tuesday. A total of 19 sprint cars made the stopover on their way back from a Fargo race on Wednesday. A $3400.00 total purse with $500.00 to the winner was a big draw for the 1st annual Pure Adrenaline Invitational pure stock race. Late Models, Super Stocks and Mid-Modifieds were scheduled for Tuesday but could not compete on Thursday because of WISSOTA racing taking place at the Grand Rapids Speedway on the same night.

Blaney, who came into the event second in national points behind Tim Shaffer, shook off a poor showing Wednesday night in Fargo North Dakota in a big way by winning everything he took part in. On Wednesday Blaney started the feature in fifth place but got into a wreck with another car on the first lap and ended up at the back of the pack where he worked his way back to a 13th place finish.

On Thursday night at Amsoil Speedway Blaney turned in the fastest qualifying lap with a 15.796 second time, won the pole dash, and went on to win the feature in his first ever appearance at the speedway. “This is a beautiful area and a really neat track; they put on a good show here.” Blaney told Northland Sports Online following the win.

National points leader Shaffer took the lead at the start of the 30 lap main with Blaney settling into second. Shaffer was able to extend his lead to nearly a full straightaway over Blaney before the two began to encounter lap traffic. Blaney was able to do a magnificent job of working his way through that traffic and managed to take the lead before the halfway point of the race. Without any further caution flags to reset things, Blaney was able to distance himself from the pack for the victory and a $5000.00 payday.

“The track was a bit slick for the feature tonight and we run on a lot of slick tracks at home in Ohio,” commented Blaney. Adding “Slick is our specialty so this played right into our hand tonight,”

The 20 lap feature for the Pure Stocks lined up with Esten Nelson and Ken Tody on the front row. At the green flag Tody sprinted into the lead shadowed by Austin Blom and Matt Madsen. They were joined by Dustin Follett from the third row and Tody and Blom as well as Follett battled at the front.

After a caution flag for a problem in turn four, Follett got an outside run to take the lead when the green light came on. Tody, Madsen and Blom were joined by Jeff Christman to run in a pack for second. The second caution flag flew for Al Rapp in turn two. Rapp retired to the work area for a tire change and rejoined the field.

At the restart Follett extended his lead while Tody and Blom battled side by side for second. The last part of the event ran caution free and boiled down to a battle between Follett and Blom for the win. Blom got a good run off turn as Follett showed a front fender alongside but couldn’t complete the pass.

As the white flag appeared it looked as though Blom had the win in hand but Follett had other ideas as he pulled to the outside of Blom and won the drag race to the checkered flag to pull out the win by inches at the line. Tody finished third over Matt Madsen and Christman held on to fifth.

Amsoil Speedway will host regular racing on Friday night with all five classes in action.

Thank you to Jerry O’Brien for the pure stock portion of the article. Wes Vork can be reached at wes@northlandsportsonline.com