POSTED APRIL 15, 2025

Night number 7 at the Mottville Speedway was another fantastic night! Temps in the 60’s and dry made conditions almost ideal and we had our high car count for the season and our crowd was actually exactly the same as the week before if you add pit passes and admissions! We sold even more tires this week than last week and registered 10 more cars!  It was a hungry and thirsty crowd also as our concession stand had its best night of the season!

It was another exciting night of racing action as Rod Roberts crashed into the front stretch wall in the heat and had to be towed to the pits but he made repairs and purchased a new tire and came back strong to win the 35 lap MS feature from the tail! Robert Teadt, Jr. made his first trip to Mottville this season in the number 73 MS and fans were buzzing over the challenge to Roberts Teadt would give but Bob had engine problems in hot lapping and was done for the night! Oh well, next week for that one! Jean Behlke also crashed in the heat but came back to finish 6^th in the feature! Wesley Schaefer, our 2000 MS Rookie of the Year, drove for the first time this season and gave Roberts a strong challenge in finishing 2^nd! Rookie Jason Schaefer looks better every week and took home 3^rd in the MS feature! He and his father, Wes, waged a hot battle in the heat with the son beating the father in a close one! Defending MS season points champion David Schaefer won the dash and was 3^rd in the heat but complained of handling problems and settled for 4^th in the feature. It was a tough night for points leader Merle Yoder as he crashed in turn 4 of the final lap of the feature and had to settle for 5^th. We had a season high 11 Mottville Stocks!

Melissa Worthington, our defending Bomber season points champion, run in Bombers for the first time this season and blew an engine late in the feature and finished 5^th.Terry Humphries purchased 4 new tires and looked very very fast in wining the Bomber feature! Alan Reaume returned to Mottville for the first time this season in a very good looking number 31 Bomber and was a close 2^nd in the feature!

We had a record high 9 thunder cars and they really put on a show for the fans! We had different winners in the dash, heat and feature which was fantastic! We had our first one position penalty for jumping on the restart before the green flag comes out and it was against Ray Beers. Tom Pearson and I both called it and it was certainly obvious to both of us! By the way if you want to get into Thunder Cars Beers has his for sale for just $400 complete!

Ryan Prough and Dick Groves finally made it to Mottville! Prough was a very close 2^nd to Randy Morley in the ss feature but Groves was not at all pleased with the way his number 77 ss was handling! Knowing Dick he will get it corrected soon!

Once again the kart feature was decided on the final lap as Jessica Brown took command and held off her brother Greg for the win! Last week Jessica did the exact same thing except her engine failed coming out of turn 4! Justin Stump from South Bend showed up for the first time in a kart and the number 20 is one very sharp kart!

When you run 74 nights in a season as we do at Mottville you can kind of separate the season into sub parts and we are nearing the end of part I! Up to now we have been the only track running and we have run Saturday night only. Kalamazoo opened last Saturday and April 28 the rest open but this season we have not had many cars from other tracks so we should be in much better shape for May which is usually a poor month for us!

Personally I am most excited about running both Saturday and Sundays starting this week-end and going on through November! This Sunday night we kick things off with a trophy night, plaques to all dash and heat winners and top 5 in the stock car features! I really believe as we go along this season Sunday nights will be much stronger than in the past with our earlier starting time and no other track in the area running regularly on Sunday nights!

You will certainly see some changes in the points standings now that we are running two nights per week! We give bonus points to drivers running both nights and those bonus points make a big difference in the point standings over the course of the season! Right now Merle Yoder (MS), Terry Humphries (B), Terry Kline (TC) and Randy Morley (SS) have nice points leads but to keep those leads they will need to run both nights every week! Don’t be surprised to see Andrew Behlke take over the points lead in karts soon as he will most likely run both nights and get those bonus points plus regular points!

  Talked to Barry Harrison at the track and his Ms is done and needs tires so we should be seeing him racing soon! He has always had a very strong car!

Looking forward to racing both Saturday night and Sunday night and hoping for warm and dry weather and hope everyone had a most joyous Easter!