Slinger, Wis., July 3—Jacob Nottestad and R.J. Braun rubbed fenders and staged a classic old-school short track battle for the win in the Washington County Fair Park and Conference Center 75 Sunday night at the Slinger Speedway before Nottestad edged ahead at the checkered flag to capture his first career Elite Eight Super Late Model Series victory.
“This is awesome and just unreal,” an excited Nottestad told the crowd from victory lane, “I didn’t know if we could hold him (Braun) off there as he was getting closer and closer and it was starting to get a little bit tight on me but we held on.”
“We’ve been making gains on it all year and it’s awesome to see it pay off,” Nottestad continued, “we had a really good car in practice and then got unlucky in qualifying with the sun coming out, but it worked out and we’re a winner.”
“I was driving pretty hard there and hoping to catch him,” Braun stated after closing quickly on the leader in the closing laps, “And I did but just didn’t have enough time to pass him.”
Brad Keith turned back a late challenge from Steve Apel to finish third and afterwards was pleased with the result.
“I’m not frustrated at all, “Keith said, “We finished third and everything held together so that gives us some momentum for the Slinger Nationals (on Tuesday July 12th).”
Steve Apel finished in fourth place while Ryan DeStefano was fifth. Alex Prunty rebounded from an earlier spin to finish sixth ahead of Dennis Prunty who also overcame an earlier incident to finish seventh. Grant Griesbach was involved in the incident with Dennis Prunty and he too recovered to finish eighth ahead of Nick Egan and Dave McCardle in ninth and tenth.
Rich Loch won the 20-lap Elite Eight Super Late Model semi-feature over Dave McCardle and Nick Egan. Max Kahler finished fourth to claim the final transfer spot into the main event and Rob Braun was fifth. Alex Prunty picked up the extra cash that goes along with winning the Mac Tools Fast Dash and R.J. Braun was the fastest qualifier with a lap time of 11.356 seconds.
Ryan Gutknecht won the 40-lap Uptown Motorcars Pro Late Model feature over Ryan Craine and Zach Prunty. Jakob Hassler and Matt Urban slide sideways across the finish line in their battle over fourth with Hassler edging Urban for the spot at the checkered flag. Jerry Eckhardt finished sixth followed by Mitchell Haver in seventh and Tyler Hromadka in eighth. Jeff Holtz and Jacob Vanoskey completed the top ten. Pro Late Model heat races were won by Willie Nelson and Ryan Craine and Jeff Holtz took top time honors with a qualifying lap time of 12.159 seconds.
Andrew Meyerhofer won the 35-lap Sportsman feature over Paul Wagner while early leader James Swan took the checkered flag in third. Jake Schraufnagel and Brady Held finished fourth and fifth respectively. James Swan won the first Sportsman heat race while rookie Alex Lopacinski captured his first career Sportsman checkered flag in the second heat race. Paul Wagner was the fastest qualifier after touring the speedway in 12.692 seconds.
Tom Elsinger Jr. bested Ricky Kaufert and Brandon Mennicke to win the 25-lap Slinger Bee feature. Misty Benn finished fourth and Ricky Gebhard was fifth. Brian Hillringhouse won the 15-lap Slinger Bee semi-feature over Mitchell Strobel and Brandon Mennicke. Ben Schulte finished fourth and Tracy Neu finished fifth. Slinger Bee heat races were won by Brian Hillringhouse, Brian Stanczyk, and Carl Benn and Ricky Gebhard’s qualifying lap time of 15.229 seconds earned him top time honors.
Joshua Zacharias won the Slinger Sixer 15-lap feature over Collin Keller and Mark Fogel Jr. Rick Buss and Brandon Gumm rounded out the top five finishers in fourth and fifth respectively. Joshua Zacharias was also the fastest qualifier in the Slinger Sixers with a qualifying lap time of 16.096 seconds.
Bill Shavlik drove his “Bat Mobile” to the win in the Figure 8 race over Scott Goetzke, Nick Ostberg, and Rick Bruskiewicz.
