Familiar faces in familiar places in speedway's 2nd week

The newly redesigned victory lane at Shawano Speedway (powered by Auto Select) saw many familiar faces return for week two on a gorgeous May 20 evening in Shawano.

Unfortunately, one familiar face fans won’t see but will always be at the speedway is Donna Dorn, who lost her battle to cancer. Her presence and compassion for her favorite drivers and track will forever be with us. Dorn was honored with a four-wide salute formation by all cars in action.

In the early laps of the class called “too tough to tame,” the IMCA Stocks, a few drivers found out how tough it was. A nasty crash on the backstretch found Anthony Kotula, Kyle Fredrick, Dan Michonski, Brad Nelson, Jordan Barkholtz, Mitch Stankowski and Tyler Welch all tangled in a wreck.

As the caution came out and safety crews attended to the drivers involved with no reported injuries to the drivers, there sure was a lot of twisted up sheet metal on the cars involved in the crash. As racing resumed on lap four, Vern Stedjee was holding off the hard charging Tyler Wendt followed by Trent Nolan, Jeremy Christians and Travis Van Straten.

Those five would battle until two laps remained and Travis Van Straten drove his 2T machine hard into the bottom of turn three and four and made it stick, passing Stedjee for the lead. Van Straten would go on to take the victory.

In the Late Models, Green Bay’s “Rocket” Ron Berna showed exactly how he earned that title. As the green flag flew Berna, jumped out to an early lead over Tim Rothe and Brett Swedberg, with Troy Springborn giving chase in fourth respectively. Out front was all Ron Berna.

Near the halfway point, Nick Anvelink found himself in the battle of the top four as he would sneak by Swedberg for second and try to catch Berna. As the laps clicked past, it was Berna with the win.

Kevin Feck showed he is a force to be reckoned with as he quickly jumped out to a commanding lead on lap one of the IMCA Modified feature.

A few cautions found Lucas Lamberies, Konnor Wilinski and Marcus Yarie all battling for position behind Feck. The hard-charging feature winner from one week ago Johnny Whitman was quickly making his way to the front after starting deep in the field.

Nobody had anything as Feck wouldn’t be denied the victory and went on to drive into the beautiful, newly renovated victory lane.

The Mighty 4 Division had lots of extra money up for grabs. Brian Watzka was the early leader with Tanner Westphal, Brad Wedde, and Lucas Hacker all within reach of the big payday.

On lap 9, Westphal would drive his bumper-to-bumper sponsored machine to the front and stayed there for the remainder of the event followed by Watzka, Wedde and Hacker. However, At the conclusion of the event and after post-race inspection, it was deemed that the 17 of Watzka was disqualified by track officials.

In the IMCA Sport Mods, Michael Springborn led the opening laps from his front row starting spot. Cole Slezewski, Hollie Welch, Travis Rhodes, Bryce Clements and Jerry Vanderloop made up the first three starting rows.

It was Springborn, and Vanderloop that would start battling for the top spot. At approximately the halfway point, Jeffery Teske was bound and determined to get to the front. Teske would get by Springborn, Clements and eventually Vanderloop in the closing laps to make his way to victory lane.

Full race results can be found at www.myracepass.com/tracks/1874. More photos from May 20’s heat races can be found on the NEW Media Inc. Sports Facebook page at www.facebook.com/NewMediaIncSports.