POSTED June 11, 2025

This past week-end was the best 2^nd week-end of June in the 11 years of current management at the Mottville Speedway! The 2^nd week of June has historically always been a real challenge. The reasons varied but graduation open houses seemed to be right at the top of the list!

By Wednesday night I was sure this would be another of those week-ends! First on Wednesday night Tim  Martin from the Vintage Modifieds called and said somehow they had booked Mottville and Galesburg for the same date and would have to pass on Mottville for the Saturday night show! Now because the 2^nd week-end of June has always been so bad (horrible is actually a better word!) I had booked the VM’s for Sat and scheduled a trophy night for Sunday to offset this! Then on Saturday the only two phone calls I received on the way to the track were drivers calling to say they would not be running due to mechanical woes! So I told our concession help not to prepare much food as it was going to be a poor night!

Well I was really wrong! We had 34 stock cars and 10 karts! An above average crowd and some of the best racing ever! It was close all night and people left very excited, several complimenting me on the show we put on! In fact two friends of mine from Nappanee, Brian and Kathy Hall, were at Mottville for the first time ever Saturday night and told me how much they enjoyed it!  The Thunder Cars really put on a show and we had 10 of them! In the end Alden Brown won his first feature ever but on the final lap it could have been any of 4 cars to win it!

The karts were equally close and it was a 5 kart battle for the win until Jessica Brown dropped out and even then a 4 kart battle with Greg Brown edging Shawn Forsyth for the win! Practically every one of the 11 heats and dashes were very close! We registered 5 new cars and the whole evening went absolutely perfect!

Right then I should have know it meant trouble with a capital T on Sunday!

Actually the week-end began with a great practice night on Thursday and two new MTC registering and rookie Jeff Brundt back with number one SS! WE had 8 SS on Saturday but due to different problems only 3 finished the feature! Those 3 did very well in the pay department-$125-$85 and $60! In a real oddity both points leader Randy Morley and 2^nd in points Scott Baker scratched before the feature!

Anyway Sunday car counts have been running higher than Saturday all season but I honestly wondered if that would be the case this time as Sunday afternoon came around! One reason I doubted it was because of the scratches we had Saturday night and because every Saturday night track around ran Saturday after two weeks of rainouts! But to my amazement Sunday we had 30 stock cars and 6 karts! We had 9 SS and paid them well-$125-$100-75-60-40-35-30! Mottville Stocks came up some to 7 and we paid them $75-60-50-45-40-35 and you can’t cut it much closer than that! TC came back with 9 cars and MTC 7! WOW!

Plus one of our better Sunday night crowds to boot! It was hot and humid but we had a nice breeze!

Barry Harrison returned in the MS and finished a strong 2^nd! I will give Barry credit for one thing-when he does not bring the car to Mottville he at least comes to race! David Fugate looked really awesome in winning the MS feature both nights and I would love to get David and Teadt, Goff and Salter all on the same night!

Speaking of Teadt we had several regulars gone on Sunday even with the high car count! Warren Sprague and Ryan Prough and Bob Aumack and Brave Dave Anthony for starters! So it would not be too amazing to hit 50 cars soon! Since Sunday Melissa Worthington told me she will have her Bomber back starting this Saturday and I had an email from another bomber driver!

The TC put on another great show with Dirty Doug Gage wining his first feature of the season but he really had to work for it! However in post race inspection it was discovered Doug had an aluminum intake and he has been told to change it before returning as we plan on keeping these TC and MTC very stock. Having said that, however, I want to quickly add that we are allowing safety rims and one car has  Howe radiator. I figure the Howe radiator will not make him go any faster!

Anyway now for the part most of you are waiting for! We had 5 Bomber cars Sunday and during their dash event 3 of the 5 seemed to be driving very aggressively! In fact we talked with one driver about jumping starts and he said he would stay in last for one lap in the feature to be sure!

Now why 3 of the 5 were driving so hard for $75 to win is beyond me but they certainly were! So on the 2^nd lap of the feature in the back stretch all 5 came crashing together! Who was at fault? No one person that is for certain! Both Tom Pearson and I agree on that and several others to boot! It was racing pure and simple. Anyway following the crash a number of people associated with one car came rushing to the pits and we moved one of the cars involved to the front stretch to keep that driver out of what have become a melee on the back stretch! Track officials got everyone back in the pits and then the uncle of one driver got in his SS car and drove it to the front stretch where the bomber car was parked! By now I was there and told the SS driver if he rammed the Bomber car he was done at Mottville! At first he backed up some and I assumed he might pull away but instead he hit the gas and rammed the rear end of the Bomber car! The result was that his SS car had body parts flying all over the track! He hit the Bomber car with such force it was moved perhaps 30-40 feet! He was ordered to leave and refused and the State Police were called. In the end he was removed, of course, because Mottville Speedway is private property and if your asked to leave and refuse the police will remove you no doubt at all about that! Meanwhile the police investigation of the SS driver continues so I will say no more about that other than to say he has been suspended from the Mottville Speedway indefinitely and lost all points for the season! When a driver pulls this kind of stunt you really have no choice at all but to suspend for a good long period because if you do not then you will have incidents like this all season long!

The vast and overwhelming majority of people in the pits and front side were very supportive of our actions and I feel our track officials acted very well in a tense situation! I think we all learned a great deal from the incident of last season! But as many of the drives, when they came for pay-off, expressed the hope that the SS ramming driver would be suspended for a long while!

Now we are again considering hiring off duty police officers on Sunday night. It adds to the expenses and reduces what we can pay over and above our published pay-offs so I really hate to do it but if I have to I will!

Monday evening Larry Mollohan of the VM called and confirmed they will be at Mottville for the all remaining dates they have with us and in fact will be adding a date to replace the one lost last Saturday! He feels they will have 9-10 cars Saturday and I certainly hope so as I have always liked this group and supported them and if they can give us 9-10 cars I will be happy!

Then on Sunday for Father’s Day all fathers who buy a pit pass or general admission ticket will receive a free hot dog and coke! This went over well last season and hopefully will again this year! I know one thing with the high male content we will need a bunch of hot dogs!

The best news of the week is that the Wednesday night for July 11 is all set! We have a page on this web site ready soon and we will have flyers at the track this week-end. It will be advertised in the Marc Times for 3 issues. MS will run 50 laps for $300 to win and the pay-off will be $300-200-150-125-100-75-60-50-45-40-35-30-25-20! This pay-off is thanks to the sponsorship of Holle’s Salvage in Syracuse and Connor’s Auto Salvage and Towing in Goshen! Many thanks to Jeff Holle and Paul Scott for this!

We will also run Bombers, TC and MTC for a regular show. All 4 classes will receive TRIPLE POINTS! We will open at 7 and race 8 Michigan time (race 7 Indiana time). We have never had a Wednesday night show like this before but if it goes even reasonably well we will do it again!

Before wrapping this up I need to mention that our own Jamie Kline, TC and MS driver, finished 6^th in the hurdles at State despite being only a sophomore! Imagine we may well have a state champion in the future! Way to go Jamie!

Be sure to read Bob Brown’s Bulletin Board message! Remember it’s the bottom line that really matters! If you can have fun racing and not spend yourself into bankruptcy like I have seen many late model drivers do than why not do it? You can have just as much fun racing MS, SS, Bombers, TC and MTC and have some dollars left over. I learned recently that a well know LM driver who races two tracks in our area every week has $60,000 in his car! He races Friday and Saturday night for $600 to win and $100  to start and while he is very good he certainly does not win every night! After he pays for tires and fuel he does not have much left . Then there are repairs, etc and still the $60,000 invested in the car! Better off to invest $200 in a TC or MTC and race for $60 to win and $10 to start! Way better off in fact!

Well you never know what will happen next at Mottville so hope to see you this week-end for another exciting week-end of racing action!