Mount Pleasant, MI - Putting on an all sprint car event, on a special night at a track that doesn't normally have sprints presented some challenges. But with some help from 5 other Michigan Dirt Tracks and a lot of behind the scenes help, we over came the things we could control!!!
Owner of Mount Pleasant Speedway, Betty Crook is where I started 8 months ago. Without Betty on board to let us attempt an all sprint show, this event wouldn't have gotten off the ground. But Betty and her son Mario (who loves sprints) agreed on a date and we were off and running.
One other track owner I bounced the idea off of for this show, since we would be going head to head, was Ron Flinn at Crystal Motor Speedway. As always, he was gracious and insightful. After some short discussions over the phone, it was decided that it was worth the try. Since we race at all the surrounding tracks, it was important to me that everyone was aware of what we would be doing at Mt Pleasant.
Owner of Michigan Traditional Sprints, Joe Irwin confirmed June 29th would work for their series, but getting the Lightning Sprints scheduled would require the cooperation of Merritt Speedway, since the lightning sprints were scheduled to run there on our projected date. Talking with Merritt owner, Mike Blackmer and explaining that I wanted an all sprint show, he changed his schedule so the 1,000 cc winged sprints could come to Mount Pleasant and run with us. The pieces fell into place and the show was put on our schedule.
The next major challenge was to get fans to come out to a new event. Mount Pleasant Speedway is a Friday night race track and we weren't running any of the local classes. So getting any of the local crowd wasn't guaranteed and we would have to draw our own crowd.
The local veterans organizations, VFW's and American Legions were very helpful getting the word out and helping us get flyers out in the surrounding area. We made sure to get some ads in the local paper, put some ads on the local radio stations and hit Facebook with a short video.
Now we've done everything in our power, the rest would be up to mother nature. The worst thing that can happen on a special event is have rain in the forecast. All the forecasts for June 29th were showing 40-50% chances of rain. However planning, scheduling and last minute details still have to be addressed and we continued to move forward no matter what the forecast!
As we got closer to the event, the forecast was looking better. By the Thursday before the event the forecast was down to a 10% chance of rain and my optimism was growing. The morning of the event, the sun was out and there was no chance of rain in the forecast...the best case scenerio a promoter can have.
Arriving at the track on a beautiful sunny day was great, however remnants of the inch of rain from 2 days before left areas of the pits a little challenging. I found a large tractor tire and hooked it on the mule and spent an hour floating the pit area to dry out the standing water and open up the ground to dry. There was also some standing water in the back chute which narrowed up our area to put heat in the motors and for quads and push trucks to pass.
Everyone was great however, using a little extra patience and understanding to get on the track.
Tri-City Motor Speedway's owners Steve & Erika Puvalowski delayed their mini vacation by a day to come over and help us behind the scenes. They also brought with them a couple people to run the pit booth as well as their safety truck and 2 of their safety guys. They also contributed a wrecker and push truck services.
We used the regular Mt Pleasant staff at the main gate as well as for track prep. Chris Herrington brought over his truck from I-96 Speedway to help push cars and his wife Becky was on hand to take pictures for us all night.
We had one big drivers meeting and tried to get everyone on the same page for the evening. We proceeded to get heat in the motors, gave everyone hot laps and got qualifying done.
We had the Color Guard present the American Flag and raise it as the National Anthem played. With the opening done, the first heat race of the night pulled on the track and our first major hiccup of the night occurred.
As the water truck was lightly spritzing the track, the truck came into turn 3 and something broke and dumped 1,500 gals of water in turns 3 and 4! It wasn't meant to be a soaking, but as it ended up...that's what we got! So the 2nd heat race that was in the chute was pushed off and the first 18 cars proceeded to pack in the track so the show could go on.
Finally getting the show on about 40 minutes later, we had some great racing between all the classes. In the non wings, Mike Moore (Fostoria, OH), Steve Irwin (Fenton, MI) and Jay Steinbach (Hudsonville, MI) won Heats 1, 2 and 3 respectively. In the Lightning Sprint class, Mack Erickson (South Boardman, MI) won Heat 1 and Tom Hunt (Ithaca, MI) won Heat 2.
In the 360 winged class, Phil Gressman (Helena, OH) set a new track record of 13.471 seconds. Our top 16 qualifying cars all beat the old track record of 14.1 seconds.
Dustin Daggett (Portland, MI) won the Kistler Engine & Racing Parts Heat 1, Andy Chehowski (Coldwater, MI) won the Campbell Performance Heat 2 and Alexis Adgate (Middleville, MI) won the Perfit/Engine Pro Heat 3.
With the heat races finished, we headed to the GLSS hauler to start lining up for the feature races. Only to find out that the generator had quit and non of the feature line ups had printed out from the tower!!! The generator was not out of gas, a new issue...the vent cap was closed and the generator quit from a vapor lock!
Problem #2 for the night! We scrambled back to the tower to get copies of the line ups and we finally rolled out for the first feature around 10:15. Thankfully the racing was great and the boisterous crowd seemed to enjoy the rest of the evening wrapping up at 11:15 pm...15 minutes ahead of curfew!!!
Steve Irwin took the checkered flag in the MTS Non Wing Feature. With Mike Galajda (Fenton, MI), Jay Steinbach, Cody Howard (Millington, MI) and Gregg Dalman (Bellevue, MI) rounding out the top 5 finishers.
In the Lightning Sprints, Tom Hunt took the checkered flag in an exciting race over Bill Dunham (Bellevue, MI), Lindsey Erickson (South Boardman, MI), Mack Erickson, and Brendon Cascadden (Traverse City, MI) who all rounded out the top 5.
As the Great Lakes Super Sprints rolled out, the track had become completely rubbered down. The fear of how good the show would be was quickly erased. With the leaders setting times in the feature that were a quarter second faster than Gressman's track record set in qualifying and the cars passing 3 and 4 wide at times, it ended up being a thriller!
Gressman made a pass around Daggett who led for 24 laps, to take the checkered flag and win his 2nd feature of the weekend. Daggett followed Gressman across the line with Gregg Dalman, Conner Morrell (Bradenton, FL) and Garrett Saunders (Lakeville, IN) rounding out the top 5.
Over all the night was a huge success and we had a lot of great racing! If I had to score myself on the event, I would have to score myself with a C on execution of the night, but I'd have to score the quality of racing as an A. I think it is something I would like to do again and continue as an annual event.
Many things happen behind the scenes every night a race track. Some things we can work on in the future to correct, other things just happen and we have to move forward. The two glaring things that happened to us last Saturday night wasn't anyone's fault and all we could do is work through them and try to put on the best show we could.
The race teams were pretty happy at the end of the night and the fans seemed happy, so that will be all the motivation I need to keep moving forward. We will continue to do the best we can and we welcome our fans input as well as everyone that races with us. Thank you for your support and we'll be back at it after this weekend off on July 12th at Tri-City Motor Speedway.
I would like to thank my wife and family for supporting me while I pursue my passion. I would also like to thank the local Veterans groups including and not limited to the American Legion and VFW, Mt Pleasant Speedway, Tri-City Motor Speedway, Crystal Motor Speedway, Merritt Speedway and I-96 Speedway. As well as thanking specifically, Becca Hollingsworth, Chris and Becky Herrington, Steve and Ericka Puvalowski and Betty and Mario Crook.
Thank you to our marketing sponsors, Beacon and Bridge Markets, Addvance Heating & Cooling, Specialty Fuels and Logistics and Hoosier Midwest. Also to our race sponsors, Kistler Engines and Racing Products, Campbell Performance, Perfit/Engine Pro and Engler Machine and Tool.
Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for all the current pictures and activities. For our schedule, points and results go to our website at www.greatlakessupersprints.com.
- Barry Marlow on Jul 02, 2019
- Article Date: 7/2/2019 by Barry M. Marlow