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LANSING, MN (May 1) - Beautiful blue skies greeted cars and drivers for week four of AMSOIL DIRT TRACK RACING SERIES ACTION at Chateau Raceway in Lansing powered by Miners Outdoor Power and Recreation. A nice field of cars but on a great show with two of the classes in particular having two of the best feature races of the young season. RS Auto Rebuilders WISSOTA Street Stock driver Tony Konold of Clear Lake South Dakota and Power 96 WISSOTA Midwest Modified driver Dan Wheeler of Columbia Heights put on a great display of patience and great driving as they drove up through there respective fields to claim what were basically caution free feature wins. Konold started inside of row three in his main event and ran fourth after lap one. Jason Barber of New Richland lead the first lap off the outside of the front row while A. J. Zvorak of Blooming Prairie moved from row two up to second followed by Ryan Goergen of Stacyville Iowa. On lap two Zvorak swept by Barber as the two came out of turn two. By the time Konold worked his way to second on lap six Zvorak had a half a straight away lead. Tony immediately went to work cutting into the lead and by lap eleven, with four laps to go, he had it cut down to three car lengths. With two to go Konold worked alongside A.J. and the two took the white flag side by side with Tony holding a slight advantage. The two worked the final lap side by side with Tony still holding the advantage. Coming through turn four to the checkers A.J. drove the car hard to the bottom of turn four and got him self crossed up spinning sideways as Konold took home the feature win for the second week in a row. By the time Zvorak straightened himself out he was only able to salvage a fourth place finish behind Barber and Goergen. What made those final laps even better was the fact the two drivers gave each other plenty of room and raced a clean exciting finish in a race that went caution free. Zvorak claimed the classes only heat win. If you through out the initial false start in the WISSOTA Midwest Modified Main event there race was basically caution free as they ran all twenty of there green flag laps without any yellows to slow the action. Greg Pfeifer JR of Austin started on the outside of row one and grabbed the first lap lead. On lap three he slipped up a bit high in turn two and opened the door for Bobby Kilby of Austin to slip by to take over the lead spot. Kilbys lead lasted just two laps as Brandon Davis of Medford, who followed Kilby under Pfeifer to move into second, went to the bottom of Bobby in turn two on lap five and the two came around side by side with Bobby still holding the advantage at the line. On lap six they stayed side by side and this time as they crossed the line it was Davis by the nose of his car with the lead. Dan Wheeler meanwhile, who started in row four, had worked his way up to third behind the two leaders. While Davis pushed out in front of Kilby, Wheeler moved up on Bobby and took over second on lap nine, about five car lengths back of Davis. It took him just two laps to close up Brandon's bumper. They ran nose to tail until lap fourteen when Dan dove to the bottom of turn four and slid by to take over the lead. Brandon tried to stay close but it would be Wheeler who would claim his second feature win of the season. Wheelers car was really hooking up on the night as he was one of three drivers on the night who posted the fasted lap of the season for there respective classes. A.J. Wiste of Adams came home in third follwed by Bryan Hernandez of Blooming Prairie and Kilby. Wheeler also took the win in his heat giving him a sweep on the night. Hernandez also claimed a heat win for the class on the night. The Pizza Ranch Pure Stocks lead all classes with twenty-one cars on hand for there portion of the show. Twenty of the cars made the call for the feature. Rookie driver Kylie Kath of Owatonna, after taking the first checkered flag of his rookie season in his heat, started on the pole. He went to the front on the first lap with James Weber of Austin and Ryan Henderson of Holmen Wisconsin pulling up to second and third. The three of them started on the inside of rows one-two and three and shot out in front of the entire outside row. Henderson worked around Weber on lap two and set his sights on Kath. Ryan moved to the outside of Kath and they ran side by side on lap five with Henderson taking the lead at the line. Over the rest of the race Kath stayed right with Henderson taking several shots at him getting up along side him but Ryan was able to drive home to his first feature win of the year. This is Ryan's first season in the class after running in the Hornet Division last season. Adam Godeke of Hollandale outran Brandon Shaner of Owatonna for third with Stacy Kronhnberg of Walters rounding out the top five. Cole Queensland of Grand Meadow got a bit of redemption in the Farm Boy BBQ WISSOTA Super Stock Feature event. Last week Cole was in a side by side battle with Ryan Siegle of Grand Meadow in the final laps of the feature when his steering wheel came off putting him into the wall and costing him a shot at the win. This week he ended up with a front row starting spot and left no doubt as he ran away from the field for his first feature win of the year. Cole also posted the fastest lap recorded this season in the class by the electronic scoring system used by the track. Jeff Brauer of Rochester ran second ahead of Jay Kintner of Hibbing who outdueled Siegle for third. Kintner normally drives at a track up north on Friday Nights but snow and cold has been hindering his attempts to get any racing in, as has been the case with many of the travelers that have been visiting Lansing in the early weeks of the season. The nights heat winner was Brauer. Tommy Myer of Blooming Prairie blitzed the field in the French's Repair and Fabrication USRA Modified feature but was lucky the race wasn't one lap longer. Myer jumped from row two to the front with a nice little three wide move down the back straightaway and through turns three and four on lap one. Myer went right up the middle of the front row of Dustin Steinbrink of Austin and Ben Mattick of Hayfield. He never looked back as he stretched out he lead over Mike Sorensen of Rochester. The hard charger of the race was Tom Paulson of Kasson who started tail end in the race in wound up in third. Paulson started back there after a disastrous heat event. He started on the pole in his heat and coming out of turn four to the green the car snapped to the right and into Josh Mattick of Austin. Both cars were heavily damaged and went to the pits on the end of the wreckers. Both must have great crews in the pits as they both got there cars put back together and were out for the start of the feature. Paulson used the first eight laps of the race to pick his way up to sixth where he ran into a wild four car battle for third. Doug Hillson of Blooming Praiire, and Ben Mattick were side by side for third and right behind them Paulson and Joel Alberts of Mantorville were side by side running fifth and sixth. The four made for some exciting racing to watch for several laps. Over the next hand full of laps Hillson took over control of third and Paulson grabbed fourth. Ben was still dueling with Tom for the spot when the group came into lapped traffic with just a couple laps left. Hillson had to lift and Paulson swept through the confusion to take third. Doug held on for fourth follwed by Ben and Joel. Meanwhile after the checkers fell to conclude the race while making his way back around the track Myer's car broke down. When he pulled to victory lane the driver side front tire was tipped way in with some obvious suspension problem. He left victory lane on the end of the wrecker with his trophy and the spring out of the left front of his car laying inside. Sorensen and Ben Mattick took the classes heat wins. Ben turned the fastest lap of the season for the class in the process of taking home that heat win. In S and S Auto Salvage Hornet action two drivers have dominated the action in the early going this year. Coming into the night Michael Wytaske of Lansing had taken every checkered flag in the Junior Division while Mike Blowers of Waseca had all the wins in the Senior Division. One streak continued on the night while one ended. The class had two extra races to run on the night from last weeks show. There feature races from a week ago never got ran because of the rain that moved in so they had to make those up early in the night before there regular scheduled races. Each of those drivers took home yet another feature win giving them six straight wins (three heats and three features) open the year. They moved that to seven each after taking the heat wins for each division. The first driver to try to make it eight straight checkers was Michael Wytaske. He wasted little time going t o the front as he went outside of Jake Bigelow of Hayfield to take second and than swept to the inside of Garitt Wytaske of Lansing to take the lead. While battling for second Garitt and Bigelow tangled bringing out a caution with Bigelow being sent tail end. Off the restart Michael took control again quickly but a lap later he was suddenly slowing and pulling to the infield with a flag tire ending his run. Garitt moved by to the front and proceeded to claim his first win of the season as he out ran Bigelow for the feature win. Bigelow did a nice job of coming back up from the back of the field to take second ahead of Jacob Stark of Austin. Cole Lonergan of Dexter and Brandon Vogt of Rose Creek rounded out the top five. In the Senior Division Blower made a perfect four sweeps in four weeks for him as he outran Paul Kroneman of Austin and Gary Stahl of Kasson in the main event for the class.
Racing action continues next Friday Night at 7:30 with more exciting racing
action at Chateau Raceway, just five miles north of Austin.
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