Lake Odessa, MI – The Great Lakes Super Sprints presented by Engine Pro & ARP, Michigan CAT Sprint Division rolled into I-96 Speedway for a race paying $5,000 to win and a $23,000 purse tonight. In spite of the forecast, we had 37 sprint cars in the pits and the fans came out to support us!
GLSS and track officials struggled with the question, do we race or not? We looked at our weather apps, local weather channel predictions and our past experiences and decided that we could get our show in today. We used 5 different sources and they all had different predictions, not a lot of help! LOL We decided full steam ahead, we’re racing!
37 Drivers checked in for tonights race: 16 from Michigan, 15 from Ohio, 4 from Indiana, 1 from Washington and 1 from Florida. The field of cars was what we hoped for, but the spitting rain continued enough to remind us we were on the clock. At 5 pm the fans were headed up into the stands to claim their spots! By race time, there was a good crowd in the stands and the pits were packed!
Our battles started out early as we packed the track and then came back for hot laps. The track wasn’t coming in like we hoped and I felt it was unsafe to qualify on, so all the cars were sent out again to roll in the track before qualifying. The track was looking pretty good as we wrapped up qualifying, where Danny Sams III (Northport, FL) set the Ti22 Quick Time overall with a 13.943 (about .16 seconds off the track record) Dustin Daggett (Portland, MI) was second quick at 13.994 seconds and Kasey Jedrzejek (Lagrange, OH) was 3rd quick with 14.018 seconds.
Giving the first heat group a few hot laps to determine if they were comfortable opening up their cars at 120 mph and race…we received thumbs ups from everyone! We were off and running…nope red flag as the 88N of Frank Neil (Vickory, OH) flipped over into the front wall on the initial start as he got squeezed up and had no where to go. Complete new restart and now we’re off and running…for two laps as the 71 of Garrett Saunders (Lakeville, IN) jumped the cushion in turn 4 hitting the wall hard and ending up, upside down. Both drivers were fine, but our night is off to a rough start! The 3rd time was the charm and we got the first heat in. We got the 2nd and 3rd Heats in with no problems and the track was looking good…as the 4th heat fired and I stood in the bottom of turn 4, I could feel the rain picking up and hitting me in the face. As the cars came around, the track had shined up and the drivers were all thumbs down as the surface was already too wet and greasy.
We sent the cars off the track for what appeared to be a 5 minute rain delay. 10 minutes later it was still raining, 10 minutes later the track prep guy and track owner came over to see us. We were done. We bet today and we were wrong.
The rain date for this $5,000 to win show is set for Friday, August 16th. Our next race on Friday, July 26th will be a normal GLSS show and our final show of Friday, August 30th will be a normal GLSS show. So for anyone buying a pit pass for tonight's race, is welcome to show your band from tonight and use that band to get in at any of these 3 shows. Fans in the stands can save their bands and use it at any I-96 Speedway race, including our remaining 3 shows.
Thank you to all the fans, sprint car teams, staff and sponsors that came out tonight to support our race! A special thank you to all the GLSS drivers who into went into the stands and all the great fans who donated tonight as we passed the helmet for our own announcer, the voice of GLSS, Zach Hiser. Zach unfortunately was diagnosed 4 weeks ago with testicular cancer at the young age of 29. Thanks to the generosity of the racing family, we raised $1,800 for Zach and his family to defray some of the many expenses he is starting to rack up. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!
Tonight’s Entries
24D-Danny Sams III[19]; 2. 11N-Kasey Jedrzejek[28]; 3. 71H-Max Stambaugh[24]; 4. 50YR-Craig Mintz[16]; 5. 51-JJ Hickle[7]; 6. 23-Devon Dobie[34]; 7. 01-Chase Ridenour[11]; 8. 1-Nate Dussel[31]; 9. 49T-Gregg Dalman[20]; 10. 12-Corbin Gurley[2]; 11. 24-Kobe Allison[3]; 12. 13-Van Gurley Jr[12]; 13. 44-Zane DeVault[21]; 14. 87-Logan Easterday[27]; 15. 17-Jared Horstman[22]; 16. 11A-Abby Hohlbein[8]; 17. 16B-Justin Clark[15]; 18. 10S-Jay Steinebach[36]; 19. 24V-Levi Voyce[32]; 20. 85-Dustin Daggett[5]; 21. 27K-Zac Broughman[35]; 22. 84-Levi Poortenga[26]; 23. 10SR-Keith Sheffer Jr[30]; 24. 38-Max Frank[25]; 25. 31-Jac Nickles[23]; 26. 70-Eli Lakin[1]; 27. 88N-Frank Neill[17]; 28. 10BR-Jason Blonde[10]; 29. 20I-Kelsey Ivy[6]; 30. 20A-Andy Chehowski[37]; 31. 27-Brad Lamberson[14]; 32. 71-Garrett Saunders[13]; 33. 67-Kevin Martens[29]; 34. 66-Chase Dunham[9]; 35. 7C-Phil Gressman[33]; 36. 11H-Caleb Harmon[18]; 37. 54-Joel Hummel[4]
Qualifying 1
- 85-Dustin Daggett, 00:13.994[2]; 2. 44-Zane DeVault, 00:14.147[6]; 3. 38-Max Frank, 00:14.298[7]; 4. 7C-Phil Gressman, 00:14.393[9]; 5. 66-Chase Dunham, 00:14.425[3]; 6. 70-Eli Lakin, 00:14.460[1]; 7. 71-Garrett Saunders, 00:14.565[4]; 8. 88N-Frank Neill, 00:14.934[5]; 9. 67-Kevin Martens, 00:15.086[8]; 10. 20A-Andy Chehowski, 00:15.332[10]
Qualifying 2
- 23-Devon Dobie, 00:14.088[9]; 2. 27-Brad Lamberson, 00:14.354[4]; 3. 17-Jared Horstman, 00:14.422[6]; 4. 10SR-Keith Sheffer Jr, 00:14.465[8]; 5. 12-Corbin Gurley, 00:14.513[1]; 6. 20I-Kelsey Ivy, 00:14.559[2]; 7. 10BR-Jason Blonde, 00:14.586[3]; 8. 11H-Caleb Harmon, 00:14.772[5]; 9. (DNS) 84-Levi Poortenga, 00:14.772
Qualifying 3
- 24D-Danny Sams III, 00:13.943[5]; 2. 51-JJ Hickle, 00:14.136[2]; 3. 1-Nate Dussel, 00:14.210[8]; 4. 01-Chase Ridenour, 00:14.413[3]; 5. 31-Jac Nickles, 00:14.477[6]; 6. 24-Kobe Allison, 00:14.733[1]; 7. 87-Logan Easterday, 00:14.733[7]; 8. 27K-Zac Broughman, 00:14.745[9]; 9. 16B-Justin Clark, 00:14.845[4]
Qualifying 4
- 11N-Kasey Jedrzejek, 00:14.018[7]; 2. 50YR-Craig Mintz, 00:14.161[4]; 3. 71H-Max Stambaugh, 00:14.339[6]; 4. 49T-Gregg Dalman, 00:14.346[5]; 5. 10S-Jay Steinebach, 00:14.510[9]; 6. 24V-Levi Voyce, 00:14.610[8]; 7. 13-Van Gurley Jr, 00:14.820[3]; 8. 11A-Abby Hohlbein, 00:15.064[2]; 9. 54-Joel Hummel, 00:16.179[1]
The next Michigan CAT Sprint Division race will be on Saturday, June 29, 2024 at Crystal Motor Speedway!
To catch past GLSS races, head over to the Great Lakes Super Sprints YouTube page. Stay updated by following us on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and X. For the latest news, schedules, results, and points, visit www.greatlakessprints.com and choose your favorite class.
Check out Michigan CAT at https://www.michigancat.com/ and Ohio CAT at https://www.ohiocat.com/
Thank you to our sponsors and partners who are the ones that allow us to bring a great show to your local tracks. Please help us by supporting the sponsors listed below….
PErfit Corporation
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- Barry Marlow on Jun 29, 2024
- Article Date: 6/28/2024 by Barry M. Marlow