The 2015 race season has officially started for the Carpetland Nebraska 360 Sprints. After having 40 sprinters in the pits on Friday night, we had 35 sprinters in the pits on Saturday night. It was a bit warmer, but breezy compared to the chilly Friday night conditions. Considering the amount of racing action at the track and the wind and sunshine, the track was very smooth, albeit a bit dry. Steve Kosiski did a great job of once again providing us an excellent racing surface. Even with a slick track, I believe there was only one yellow flag during the 5 heat races which can only be attributed to really good driving/racing.
Winner of Heat 1 was Lee Grosz from Harwood, ND; heat 2 saw Dusty Zomer from Sioux Falls SD take the win; Heat 3 was won by Danny "The Dude" Lasoski from Higginsville, MO; and Heat 4 saw Wade Nygaard from Grand Forks, ND be the first car under the checkered flag.
B features saw Ryan Roberts from Aurora, NE and Cody Ledger from Omaha take the wins and transferred to the A feature.
Because of the windy conditions, it was determined the track was going to rubberdown; therefore, it was decided to shorten the race to 20 laps rather than thew scheduled 25 laps to prevent the race from coming down to a race of tire preservation.
The Speedway Motors A feature saw Jody Rosenboom on the poll with "Black Jack" Brian Brown on the outside of the front row and led the field of 21 cars to the green flag to start the race. Brown jumped into an early lead which he maintained throughout the race. As the race progressed, the track changed and as anticipated "rubber-downed" which created a two groove, but fast racing surface. As he did on Friday night, Danny "the Dude" Lasoski quickly found himself in 2nd place and began running down his nephew, Brian Brown. On lap 12, The Dude made a great move that appeared he would take the lead only to see Brown return to the lead. On lap 15 the yellow was thrown for the Eric Lutz 24BH car that came to a stop on the front stretch because he had lost his brakes. This provided for a 5 lap shootout between Brown, Lasoski and Dusty Zomer who had found his way toward the front. However, once the race resumed, Browm once again charged to the lead and held on for the win in spite of a strong push to the checkered flag by Lasoski. Following Brown and Lasoski was Dusty Zomer, Clint Garner, Lee Grosz, Jody Rosenboom, Ian Madsen, William Alley, Ryan Bickett and Cody Ledger coming from the B feature to round out the top 10.
We have numerous people to thank for this weeks racing including; Joe Kosiski and the entire Kosiski Family for providing us such a great racing venue, the race teams and drivers from 2 countries and 8 states that traveled to race with the Nebraska 360 Sprints and above all, the fans who came out in spite of the cold and windy weather. As we all know, there is no family like the racing family. Happy Easter to all and safe travels to those that traveled to I-80 to race or spectate. We hope to see you all again this race season.