Nelson & Estey Win At Amsoil Speedway

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June 29, 2012

By Jerry O’Brien

Darrell Nelson of Hermantown won career Late Model feature number 12 at the speedway Friday night. Kelly Estey of Kelly Lake battled the final few circuits of the WISSOTA Modified feature with his son Skeeter to sweep the division. Mike Bellefeuille of Duluth was the winner of the WISSOTA Super Stock feature, his second of the season. Deven VanHouse of Silver Bay also won his second feature of the season in the WISSOTA Midwest Modified feature and Mark Smith appeared to win his second Pure Stock feature of the season but a carburetor issue discovered in post race inspection caused a disqualification giving the victory to Saginaw’s Jeff Engelmeier his first feature win at the speedway.

The first feature onto the speedway was the 15 lap Midwest Modified main event. Deven VanHouse got the jump on pole sitter David Simpson from the second row but a caution flag flew for Dan Kingsley’s spin in the fourth turn. The next try saw VanHouse in the lead and Brady Caul making the leap from row number three to second ahead of Don Craig, Jason Goldfine and Loren Inman. Cody Wolkowski made a try at Inman and moved to fourth.

VanHouse and Caul pulled away to a long lead as Neil Balduc made a charge up to fifth after starting in the last row. At the half way point VanHouse had worked his lead to several car lengths over Caul, Wolkowski, Inman, Balduc were in the top five and Kingsley had worked his way from the rear to sixth. Craig, Jake Gondik, Goldfine and Simpson were in the top ten. VanHouse ran up on the pack at the rear of the field and found some difficulty in lapping the traffic which gave Caul a chance to catch up. Caul put on the pressure but fell short by a car length. Wolkowski, Inman and Kingsley were the rest of the top five.

Mike Bellefeuille survived seven caution flags to win his second Super Stock feature of the season at the speedway. Bellefeuille was able to pull out to big leads after each caution period as several drivers squabbled for position as they tried to overhaul the #21. Major players included Dave Flynn, Scott Lawrence, Andy Grymala and Pat Heikkinen in the early part of the event.

Later on Rick Simpson joined in the fun as he, Lawrence and Flynn battled each other while trying to make up ground on Bellefeuille. The final caution flag flew with four laps remaining closing up the pack and giving Lawrence a chance. Bellefeuille was able to hold him off, Flynn and Simpson ended up in a battle for third as they exchanged the position in the final laps. Bellefeuille took the #21 to his 21st career feature win at the speedway. Lawrence, Flynn, Simpson and Grymala were in the top five.

Skeeter Estey popped out into the lead from the pole early in the 20 lap WISSOTA Modified feature with Scott Heikkinen to second, Jeff Tardy third and Kelly Estey fourth. Kelly Estey soon swept into second and began to chase down his son as Jody Bellefeulle moved into the top three. Tardy was fourth trying to hold off Darrell Nelson.

Nelson took the position and Tardy soon found himself battling with first time visitor Matt Leer. Kelly and Skeeter Estey battled for the lead as Bellefeuille and Nelson began to close in. Kelly bested Skeeter by a car length at the checkered flag; Nelson Bellefeuille and Tardy were top five finishers.

Harry Hanson grabbed the WISSOTA Late Model feature lead at the green flag but a spin by Todd Frank reset the field. Hanson still held the lead but Darrell Nelson, Tom Waseleski, Jr., and Tim McMann were right there. Nelson drove to the outside of Hanson and took the lead across the back stretch. Waseleski was third, McMann fourth and Aaron Lillo ran fifth. Waseleski got past Hanson and made a run at Nelson at the half way point but Nelson was able to fend him off.

The second caution of the event then occurred as Jeff Massingill slowed in turn four and pulled into the infield. At the green, Nelson maintained the lead and Hanson jumped past Waseleski to second. Nelson drove to the win over Hanson and Waseleski, McMann and Chris Olson.

The attrition in the Pure Stock 15 lap feature saw 50% of the two dozen starters fall by the wayside during the event and the winner disqualified during post race inspection.

The race started with a caution on the first lap and seemed to deteriorate from there. Right after the restart with Jon Hammitt in the lead battling with Mark Smith, Chad Nikstad and Dustin Follett, the red flag was thrown after a nasty roll over on the back stretch by Tim Carlson. Shaina Rapp and Matt Hammitt were also involved but were able to drive away and rejoin the action.

At the restart Jon Hammitt held onto the lead as Follett, Nikstad and Smith went three wide for second. No good could come of that and Nikstad scraped the back stretch concrete. Hammitt then broke a drive shaft causing yet another caution flag.

With 13 laps still to go at the restart, Follett had the lead followed by Justin Madsen, Smith, Andy Udeen, and Josh Johnson and the race seemed to settle down. Madsen closed up on Follett and made a race out of it but the leaders crashed in turn four. Madsen was charged with the incident and sent to the rear. Follett then drove off to the lead as Smith, Jeff Engelmeier and Travis Zembo tagged along. Follett suffered a flat tire heading for the checkered flag causing a scramble as cars scattered. Smith crossed the finish line first followed by Engelmeier, Johnson, Zembo and Steve Udeen.

It appeared to be Smith’s second feature win of the season but post race inspection found issue with the carburetor causing a disqualification and giving the feature win to Engelmeier, his first ever at the speedway.

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