POSTED  AUGUST 3, 2025

DAVID CRESSLER came to the Mottville Speedway Sunday night for the first time and won the 15 lap Mini Thunder Car feature on a rainy and wild night!

With dark skies overhead and a 2^nd shower heading for the track Cressler just beat the rain and 2^nd place Richard Allbee for the win. Justin Mosher was 3^rd followed by Tony Neering, Paul Lewis and Mike Guthrie.

The first heat was run in a total downpour and Lewis, driving for the first time at Mottville, loved the rain as he took the win over Cressler and Allbee. By the time of the 2^nd heat the track was somewhat drier and Cressler won it over Mosher and Lewis.

Tim Vitali won his 2^nd Street Stock feature of the season as he took the 15 lapper over Don Vitali and season points leader Robert Sutton. Ben Raber actually crossed the line 2^nd but was dqed in post race inspection for soft tires.

Shane Eldridge won his 4^th Mini Stock feature of the season with a 12 lap victory over Eric Root. Results were the same in the heat.

Tony Eldridge won his 6^th Bomber feature of the season in a 15 lapper and took over the season points lead while also winning the heat.

Paul Scott padded his Pro Stock points lead by winning the 15 lap feature and heat.

This coming week-end is another triple header week-end of racing action at Mottville as Friday night is a trophy night , Saturday a regular night of racing and Sunday kids ride in the race cars.

This was one of those nights people will be talking about for years and it could happen at Mottville! It actually started about 1 pm when I was eating lunch with my brother and his wife and daughter in Auburn. My cell phone rang and it was Cressler asking if we were going to run and stating it was raining in Highland, In where he lives. I told him we were planning on running and told me we had run MTC in the rain before. He responded it sounded like fun and sure enough he and Neering (from Cedar Lake, In) both showed up. 15 minutes before race time we knew rain was coming and sure enough just as the MTC came out for their first heat it poured down! I mean heavy rain before it was over and the water was splashing all over the track! But they raced and raced well and Lewis really looked great! Then hail was added to the rain and we took a recess. At this point in time our world famous flaglady Rita Courtney was soaked to the skin!

The hail eventually left and was replaced by a steady light rain and racing resumed! Every car ran and no fans left! In fact Mosher showed up just in time for the 2^nd MTC heat and at intermission both Vitalis and Guthrie came in along with a bunch of fans!

Now this is the first time ever in 13 years that I have actually seen more cars and fans come as the night went on when it rained! It did quit raining and then the tornado warnings started but none were even close to the track. We will monitoring the NWS and they reported tornado sightings at Wyatt and Millersburg, In both about 40-50 miles south and at CR 12 and CR 1 on the Elkhart-St Joseph (IN) line, again at least 30 miles away.

The Street Stocks and Pro Stocks ran on a fairly dry track as did the MS. As the MTC came out for the final feature of the night the skies turned very dark and we knew rain was coming again but it held off until the feature was over!

I want to thank all the drivers, fans and track officials for their tremendous cooperation during the night! Only at Mottville could we have pulled this off and our car count and crowd was actually larger than one year ago on this date! How about that?

We registered 3 new MTC and have registered 5 new MTC in the last two weeks! We had 6 actually race tonight and we now have about 10 “active” MTC! People are finding this is a fun division! Cressler and Neering both race at Illiana and they have a $250 claimer rule, $400 with full roll cage!

The karts elected not to run, which was fine, and they will run double features next Sunday.

Talk about soft tires! 3 of Raber’s tires were 50 and the rule is 60! His tires are the track tire at a nearby track and you can imagine how long a 50 tire lasts! Talk about how costs! How could any track pay enough to offset the cost of these tires?

Sometimes you just never know! As I went to the track this afternoon I wondered if we could even get the race in and if we did I expected very little! Then we get the bad weather but a very respectable car count and crowd!

Anyway it really charges me up for next week-end! Special “oval” trophies for Friday night and Sunday kids ride in the race cars.

Thursday I am having a different experience. Baer Field Speedway invited several area tracks including Mottville to come to the Sunoco 100 lapper paying $3000 to win and bring their pace cars for the parade lap during the National Anthem. So I am bringing the pace car and will give it shot provided my old boss Tom Isch does not have a change of heart!