Lowell Bennett won his first race of the season at the E.H. Wolf and Sons Memorial Day Special on Sunday night at the Slinger Super Speedway. With the winner of the last two Super Late Model features a little over a second behind him, Bennett led the final half of the eighty lap race on his way to the victory.
“Sometimes that first one is tough,” said Bennett. “We made some changes this week, we went to a two barrel carburettor from a four barrel. That makes a whole lot of difference in the handling of the car and I’m kind of glad we did that.”
The Super Late Model race started with Al Schill and Steve Apel on the front row. The veteran and young gun battled back and forth for the first ten laps with veteran Schill coming out on top. Schill paced the field as Bennett, who had fallen back to sixth worked his way forward using the high groove to pick up positions. On lap forty, Bennett found himself in second and a lap later made his move past Schill with an outside pass out of turn two to take [img_assist|nid=210|title=|desc=Brian Holtz winner of the Midwest Sportsman Feature|link=node|align=right|width=220|height=154]the lead. Prunty was also moving forward and took command of second place with thirty laps remaining. Racing through traffic, Prunty chased Bennett but was unable to make up any ground. Matt Kocourek, who set quick time, and Dash winner Mike Egan had a spirited battle with Tommy Hromadka and Conrad Morgan. Kocourek finished in third and Egan fourth when the checkers flew. Winner of the season opener, Eric Fransen returned and improved five spots from his starting spot to finish in fifth. Jeff Holtz won the semi-feature race and along with Chris Ratajczyk transferred to the feature.
[img_assist|nid=212|title=|desc=Lowell Bennett in Victory Lane with sponsors from EH Wolf & Sons|link=node|align=right|width=220|height=154]by John Wiedemann
Lowell Bennett won his first race of the season at the E.H. Wolf and Sons Memorial Day Special on Sunday night at the Slinger Super Speedway. With the winner of the last two Super Late Model features a little over a second behind him, Bennett led the final half of the eighty lap race on his way to the victory.
“Sometimes that first one is tough,” said Bennett. “We made some changes this week, we went to a two barrel carburettor from a four barrel. That makes a whole lot of difference in the handling of the car and I’m kind of glad we did that.”
The Super Late Model race started with Al Schill and Steve Apel on the front row. The veteran and young gun battled back and forth for the first ten laps with veteran Schill coming out on top. Schill paced the field as Bennett, who had fallen back to sixth worked his way forward using the high groove to pick up positions. On lap forty, Bennett found himself in second and a lap later made his move past Schill with an outside pass out of turn two to take [img_assist|nid=210|title=|desc=Brian Holtz winner of the Midwest Sportsman Feature|link=node|align=right|width=220|height=154]the lead. Prunty was also moving forward and took command of second place with thirty laps remaining. Racing through traffic, Prunty chased Bennett but was unable to make up any ground. Matt Kocourek, who set quick time, and Dash winner Mike Egan had a spirited battle with Tommy Hromadka and Conrad Morgan. Kocourek finished in third and Egan fourth when the checkers flew. Winner of the season opener, Eric Fransen returned and improved five spots from his starting spot to finish in fifth. Jeff Holtz won the semi-feature race and along with Chris Ratajczyk transferred to the feature.
The Late Model race had a hard time getting started with Wayne Freimund and Rob Braun needing a couple tries to hit the start finish line together. Once they got going, the caution flag flew as Brad Dahmer spun in turn three, collecting John DeAngelis in the incident. When the green flag flew again, the race ran the rest of the laps caution free. Freimund led Braun for the early laps with the entire field nose to tail. Braun made his move past Freimund for the lead on lap fourteen and set sail away from the pack. The other car on the move was car number “X” driven by Jon Reynolds Jr. With fifteen laps remaining in the race, Reynolds won a heated position battle with Dave McCardle Jr. and Chris Blawat, taking over the second spot. By that time Braun had distanced himself from the second place battle and was able to cruise to the victory.
straightaway lead, James Swan charged through the field from his seventh place starting spot. With ten laps remaining in the race, Swan had closed
to within three car lengths of the leader. Three laps later, Swan was on Holtz’s rear bumper. Swan looked high and low but could not find his way
around the leader. As they raced the final lap, Holtz moved to the high lane to get by and Swan dove low as they approached a backmarker car. They
raced down the frontstraight to the checkers side by side and Holtz took the win by .044 seconds.
Recalling the final laps Holtz said, “That was not the car I wanted to see behind me but we raced him (Swan) hard and raced him clean. He helped me with the car, if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have won.”
[img_assist|nid=208|title=|desc=Great Crowd for the 2010 EH Wolf and Sons Memorial Day Event|link=node|align=right|width=220|height=147]Andy Welter and Ken Schraufnagel battled the lead of the race in the Thunder Stock feature for the first half of the race until Schraufnagel drove to the inside out of turn four and took over the lead. The caution flew right after the lead change when Nathan Fick spun in turn two. On the restart, Schraufnagel resumed the lead while Eric Lingford charged from fifth to second in five laps. The laps ran out for Lingford and he would have to settle for second as Schraufnagel ran away to the win. Ryan Farrell, Al Stippich and Welter completed the top five.Brandon Tackes used all of the lanes on the track as he raced through the Slinger Bees feature race. Finally settling on the high line, Tackes
grabbed the lead on lap ten and looked to pull away from the pack. In the meantime, Joe Lang had also raced through the pack and caught up to Tackes with three laps remaining. The two leaders had caught heavy traffic and finished the race weaving through the backmarkers. Tackes held the lead to take his first win of the 2010 season. Lang followed about a car length behind for second. Starting at the rear of the field Mark Johler and Alex Prunty made their way to the front finishing third and fourth respectively.