POSTED March 23, 2025

Paul Scott, Jason Schaefer and Bill Crapo all scored their first feature wins of the season on a chilly night number 3 of the 2002 season at the Mottville Speedway Saturday night! Scott out dueled Donald Hunley in the 15 lap Pro Stock feature and kept his season points lead! On lap 3 the two came together and Hunley’s car suffered minor damage but he was able to continue. He challenged Scott several times for the lead but was unable to get by! In the PS dash Scott nudged Hunley by mere inches for the win!

Jason Schaefer set a blistering pace in the 24 lap Mottville Stock feature and by feature’s end his 61 car was running extremely hot! But the 2001 MS Rookie of the Year had the win over Larry Birk and Merle Yoder. Birk kept his season’s points lead and he and Yoder collided coming out of turn 4 on the final lap and Birk kept his car running straight for 2^nd place! Yoder showed up at the track without his race car but went back and got it in time for the feature! Newcomer Rodney Amos in a truck was 4^th and vowed to return with better tires! Another newcomer, Paul Mishler, Jr. was 5^th. Birk won the Jenkin’s NAPA Auto Parts Stores dash over Schaefer and Mishler while Schaefer came back to win the heat over Birk and Mishler.

The 25 lap Thunder Car feature was really exciting with Crapo, Eric Root and Randy Burns waging a tremendous 3 car battle for the win all 25 laps! Crapo had a hot car at the end but a winning car! Root was a very close 2^nd and Burns 3^rd with Bryan Whitaker 4^th. Whitaker kept the season points lead. It was Crapo’s first time out for the 2002 season. Burns won the dash over Crapo and Whitaker. In the heat Burns hit Root coming out of turn 1(going the wrong way around the track for the 2^nd half of the race) and the win was given to Root. Whitaker was credited for 2^nd and Crapo 3^rd.

Defending Mini Thunder Car season points champion Fred Garrett won his 3^rd feature of the season over Brian Jenkins in a 25 lapper. The heat results were the same.

Our car count was down for some reason but still ahead of opening night and the crowd was about the same as last week which is most encouraging! The MTC field should increase some now as Jenkin’s wife has purchased a car and will have it at the track next Saturday! Should be most interesting a husband and wife racing against each other! 1999 MS Rookie of the Year Jessica Degoede was a spectator and says she will have her MS ready to go next Saturday! She also said her brother Sonny will have his TC next week! I am really anxious to see Sonny in a TC! David Terry was also a spectator but should have his TC back soon! Polk Wilbur and Vic Krontz are working on a TC and hope to have it ready in one or two weeks!  Saw Cindy Grinnell before the races started and she said she will have her TC back at Mottville next week! But her father, Fred Collins, told me he is retired! I still do not believe it and hope to see Fred back in a TC real soon! I am sure the “bug” will bite him before long!

Richard Allbee lost his season points lead in the TC division to attend his son’s wedding but he has vowed that will be his last miss for this season! After he wins the TC season points championship his next goal to go racing in NASCAR WINSTON CUP! Mr. Allbee says why bother with Busch Grand National or ASA or ARCA? We sure will miss him at Mottville!

When you run 76 nights per season you are always going to have some nights where your car count is down and when it happens you only hope that the cars you have will put on a good show for the fans and they really did as all were very exciting!

I am more than ready for some warm weather! Thursday we had to cancel hot laps due to the extreme cold and bring out the space heaters and heat bulbs again! Saturday night before leaving the track the space heaters and heat bulbs were back in operation with another cold front moving in!

Our webmaster David T. Schaefer is to be congratulated on winning a bronze award for the site of the month! This was against some very big time competition! A job well done David and 22,000 hits only proves it once again!

One more week of Saturday night only racing and then we get very serious and go to Saturday night and Sunday night racing through the end of November and I am ready for it big time! It always seems like we are running in slow motion when we only race Saturday night!

We are getting a lot of response to the Raymond Beers Memorial race for April 21! That may well be our high car count and crowd count for the season so don’t miss it!

Warren Sprague missed his first race of the season Saturday but last week told me his family should have two more PS out at Mottville real soon! Matt Buzzard may have his PS ready this week! Still have not had a Jeff Brunt sighting yet! Jason Schaefer told me he hopes to have his new MS-David’s old car-out real  soon, perhaps as soon as next week! Right now he really has the present car running real well!

Lots of excitement at Mottville, so come on out this Saturday and catch some of it! Don’t forget we open the track for hot laps every Thursday! This Thursday it will be from 5-8 PM and then starting in April 6-9 pm.

One week to go in March and then April will be here and we have a big April schedule coming up! I am really excited about it and hope you are too!