POSTED March 10, 2025

Saturday, March 9, 2025 had to be the coldest opening night  ever in the 52 year history of the Mottville Speedway! The actual temperature at noon was about 60 but by race time it had fallen to about 20 and the wind chill had to be below zero with winds gusting to 35-40 miles per hour! It was unreal and then you add snow! Yes and some of it stuck on the ground and the track!

Still in spite of it all we got the entire program in and we had 12 cars! I was amazed that with weather conditions this bad we could actually get 12 cars and this early in the season! We had 3 pro-stocks, 2 Mottville stocks, 4 thunder cars and 3 mini-thunder cars!

Paul Scott won the PS dash and heat and looked to be the favorite for the 15 lap feature but Charlie Hanna started 2nd and Paul could not get by him! Charlie went home with the $75 which is pretty good for only 3 cars! Warren Sprague had a new PS and was 3rd.

Jason Schaefer, our 2001 MS Rookie of the Year, won the dash but could not get by Larry Birk in the 12 lap feature! On the final lap and coming in for the checkered flag Jason made one last desperate attempt to get by Larry but failed by mere inches and Birk took home the $50!

Newcomer Bryan Whitaker with a good looking number 97 car won an exciting 15 lap TC feature! Richard Allbee, who won the dash, was 2nd and Josh Owen 3rd. Defending TC track champion Eric Root won the heat but could not get his car started in time for the feature!

Rookie Brian Jenkins, part of the W D Motorsport team, won the MTC dash and looked most impressive! Veteran Fred Garrett, defending MTC track champion, won the heat and came back to take the 12 lap feature. Leroy Dick of Elkhart came to Mottville for the first time and finished 3rd and was most eager to come back again!

Hopefully these were the worse weather conditions that we will race in during 2002! I know as of right now the forecast for next Saturday is much better! In fact it was so cold after the races Saturday night that we had to put space heaters out in the concession stand and rest rooms to prevent the pipes from freezing!

But other than the horrible weather we really did not have any problems at all! No complaints and the program ran off with 11 events and only about 3 caution flags all night!

Last week I told you about Racin It, a new racing newspaper. Well it turns out we actually have two new racing newspapers! MICHIGAN RACING SCENE  is the one that will come out for its first edition April 12 and it is the one which will be given free to all drivers! We will be selling it at Mottville this season and for only $1! The publisher has extensive experience in racing and each track gets a ½ page per issue for results, and points and pictures! Sounds terrific! Plus this new racing newspaper will not be promoting it's own shows and trying to get every track within 300 miles to take the week-end off when they promote it like another racing newspaper we all know of!

Saw Dennis Zimmerman this week and he says he is building 4 race cars for other people and 2 of them, a MS and MTC, are for Mottville!  It would certainly appear that our MTC and TC classes will have good car counts this season! I have received a lot of emails and phone calls about them! With the economy just now picking up some of these classes are really the way to race and have fun without spending a lot of money!

Will be interesting to see what our car count is this Saturday if the weather is even halfway decent! It sure was encouraging to have 12 cars under horrible weather conditions! It was also nice to get back to racing again after 3 months off! Only 75 nights to go this season!

Rita Courtney had the toughest job at the track Saturday night as she was flagging! 2nd worse was Shelly Lauderdale working security and outside! Actually in the pit tower with a space heater it never quite got to 40! But we got it  in and had some fun and those of us who were there will be telling stories about the rest of our lives!

So its onward and upward and I am ready for night 2 this coming Saturday! Hope to you at the Mottville Speedway because there truly is

“NO PLACE QUITE LIKE IT”
ON THE ENTIRE EARTH AND WE LOVE IT THAT WAY!