Edition 30, September 24th - 2008

Scary Fast at Madison Speedway

After the rain out at Marshfield the Berge Racing team was anxious to get back on the track. We felt that we finally had solved some of our handling issues after our Milwaukee finish and recent Sunday appearances at Slinger indicated we were on the right path with the new set up. We wanted to prove that the changes would work on a medium size track so Madison was circled in red on our calendars as the race to win.

Saturday October 20 was perfect weather for racing in Wisconsin. Temperature was in the low eighties and the fans rapidly filled the stands at MIS. Mark Blume had been with the team, and when he joined us in the stands he said our car was fast. “How fast” I asked. “Pole position fast” was his reply. I call that scary fast, sort of on the edge, but you feel it has more if you need it. We were joined in the stands by a few Hankscraft couples and Berge Racing families. We always have a great time with this group and we feel very comfortable with our racing friends.

Thirty cars would attempt to qualify this day. First attempts by most entries were in the high nineteen to mid twenty second brackets. Bill Prietzel laid down a respectable 19.448; and was followed up by Troy Shear 19.442. Two cars looped in turn 1 during their qualifying before our attempt, which is somewhat un-nerving but James Swan put up a 19.377 in his first lap which would be posted as fast time for this event. The track record of 19.166 would be safe this day and we would start 14 th in the feature. This would be tough at best to get to move to the front in 40 laps.

The last chance race with 16 entries would advance the top 6 to the feature race. The #99 entry with Schmitt and the #99 with Thorson behind the wheel battled towards the front while the #93X and #93 piloted by friend Dave Obermeyer fought to stay in the top six positions for transfer. In the end of the 20 lap battle, both 99 cars and both 93 cars would move on to the feature with the #45 entry piloted by Kenny Smart.

What seemed like an eternity, we had to wait for several other divisions to complete their last chance races and semi features. Good racing but minutes turned into hours and finally the races started to count laps under yellow to try to move the racing program along a little faster. Two of the racing divisions before our feature finished with green, white, and checker due to last lap spins and crashes. We assumed at this point in the evening we could easily see the same completion to our race. Our wives were tolerant; but fidgety due to the length of the evening program.

Our 40 lap feature finally commenced with #40 McClintock leading the field to the green flag with many fast cars between the pole position and our 14 th starting point. Lap 6 and #32 Nowak had moved to 3 rd and we had advanced to 13 th. Lap 8 witnessed a spin in turn 1 with four cars pointed in the wrong direction, with the #93 and 6 going to the pits. The #5 Prietzel moved to the 7 th position on restart and looked stout. Lap 18 showed us in 10 th position, and Swan moved two more spots to 8 th on lap 20. Lap 25 and the #5 was black flagged due to leaking oil and we were positioned in 6 th. Lap 37 and we held to 5 th. True to form, lap 38 of our 40 lap feature had a spinning 93X which meant another green, white, checker finish. Lyle Nowak deservedly won the feature.

We were able to advance one more position to 4 th, but our big accomplishment was our gain in points over second place. We are now leading by 59 points in front of Prietzel, which is a little more comfortable from were we started the evening. The season is not done by any means as we move to Rockford on Sunday September 28. We look forward to the two final races of the year, and need some racing luck to hold our lead. Join us if you can at Rockford to watch some great fall racing action.

Racing to the Checkers,
Jim