September 19, 2003; Plover, WI - The first Eve of Devastation rained out. Hardly any rain all summer, then on the night of mayhem and fun we get downpours. But the crowd waited for the raindate, which ended up being a very, very chilly night.
Cruiser time trials started off the night. Forty-three cruisers showed up to race for the
championships. #007 Gurlaski & Ruether
timed in the fastest for the night. Two transferred from the consi into the semi, and two from the semi
into the feature. #2F Greening & Haney
took the consi with with #5 Clark & Boyer winning the semi. The most experienced drivers came out for the feature championships. #99 Nielsen & Engman took the checkered with
#01 Kampert & Kampert in second, and #29 Wisinski & Szymkowiak in third. #29 Winsinski & Szymkowiak took the
championship for the 2003 season. Spectator races had some “edge of your seat” excitement as
Mike Sortino almost took his 1974 Z28 Camaro into the front stretch wall. He was able to hit the brakes and bury in the sand
before touching the wall. Mike continued to
race and ended up taking the third place trophy home.
Paul Hojnacki finished first, with Skeeter Bulyour in second. Forwards/Backwards races – Main objective is you go two laps forward, cross the finish line, slam your car in reverse, and go two laps backwards. The first heat had Brian Rosenthal in first, Tim Rosenthal in second, and Kyle Kubisiak in third. The second heat had Ryan Melcher in first, Dave Sulivan in second, and Dustin Goetsch in third. The third heat had Kurt Guralski in first, Jason Pingel in second, and Eddy Lapoint in third. The top three in each race transferred to the forward/backwards
championships. The #7 car driving by Pingel
& Williams started the race off doing their backwards laps first! Maybe they thought it would help them on the
finally laps going forward, but the weaving in out of the traffic kept them out of first
place, plus they were in a cruiser car! Tim
Rosenthal finished in first, with Eddy Lapoint in second, and Jason Pingel & John
Williams. Eggcellent Race – drivers had to hold an egg on their spoons as
the drove around the race track. First one to
finish with their egg still in tack won. Congratulations
to Jim Wachowiak winner of the eggcellent race. During intermission, the fans got involved for a little foot racing. Dubbed the Birthday race, fans had to start at one
end with a match, race to the other light a candle on a cupcake and race back with the lit
cupcake. Mark Keutjes won the race and got a
cool $50! Dupes of Hazzard Jump – Dozens of cars lined up to see how far
they could jump. Some of the cars were pretty
beat up from previous races. One car was so
slow coming up to the ramp that, track promoter; Craig Bassuener started racing him on
foot to the jump. If Craig would have kept
going, he probably would have beat the car! Everyone’s
favorite the Flower Power Van, driven by Brandon Erickson, ended up flying the
furthest. Only two cars actually rolled over during the roll over contest. Once contestant missed the entire ramp and hit it
with his back bumper! Congratulations to Ron
Wille and Brian Mowak for actually rolling their cars over. The bus races had a lot of green drivers in them. Most of the regulars could not make it and guys
that never raced jumped in the buses. The
pegged Pete Gilson’s bus right away and tipped him over. Gary Wosick in the Ops bus won the race. The trailer races were a huge hit once again. The last crash was pretty scary, but both drivers were fine. The top three in the trailer races, that could actually keep running were, #86 cruiser car Kuhn & Kuhn in first, Phil Helmrick in second, and Karl Kiggins in third. |
