POSTED June 25, 2025 

Strong car counts and good crowds featured another week-end of racing action at Mottville! Saturday and Sunday nights had identical crowds if you add pit passes, adult admissions and child admissions. We had more in the pits on Saturday and more in the stands on Sunday. To my pleasant surprise we had 30 stock cars and 11 karts on Saturday and then came back Sunday with 33 stock cars and 5 karts! Sunday was really a shocker as we had tough competition from at least two tracks in the area with Sunday specials! Plus on Saturday night Jeff Brunt had engine problems as did Scott Baker! Jean Behlke had a union meeting Sunday and Fred Garrett developed engine problems in his TC Saturday night. So to have two more stock cars on Sunday than we had Saturday was really nice!

11 karts in the 15 lap feature Saturday night was really exciting! They put on a tremendous show and Shawn Forsyth and Justin Stump traded the lead back and forth for about all 15 laps! Eric McGlothlen in just his 2^nd night at Mottville came in a strong 4^th!

MTC rookie Nathan Aumack won features both nights! His brother, Mike, was much faster also but has a handling problem  coming out of the turns which when he can get that corrected will make him a force to content with! Randy Morley was forced to drive his back-up MTC both nights and that car is not nearly as fast as his regular car! Eric Root purchased the former Rod Robert’s TC and found it took some adjustments to from one of the slowest cars in the field to one of the very fastest! He hit the front stretch wall Sunday night during the heat and missed the feature! But when he gets things sorted out Eric should be a factor to reckon with!

Willie Oliver Jr. won his first feature ever Saturday night and he is another TC who has paid his dues and deserved a win! He made so much money he was not back Sunday, however!

We had 8 SS and 2 Bombers Saturday night so we ran them as one class and paid them a nice feature pay-off of $125-100-75- 65 to those who finished on the same lap. The two cars who finished but were lapped several times got $40 and $35. Paul Scott drove the number 9 SS usually driven by Matt Buzzard and did a terrific job finishing 3^rd Saturday night! Paul should have his regular 59 car back this week-end!      

Even though Jean Behlke was gone Sunday her husband Todd, son Andrew and father Tom Koehler returned to race karts which was nice! Jean, however, took the keys to MS 80 with her so Todd could not drive it! Not sure if that was good or not! Andrew now has two karts, one very fast, one not nearly as fast but the trouble this week-end was the fast one kept breaking! Anyway it was nice to see David Wayne pick up another feature win Sunday night!

The Bomber car count jumped to 6 on Sunday and Warren Sprague returned after being absent several weeks with anew car! Terry Humphries was back and collected another feature win. Melissa Worthington said again her Bomber will be ready this week-end! We had only 5 SS but paid them a super pay-off of $100-75-60-50-40 and I guarantee you that is our absolute max for 5 cars! When you add in the heat pay that figures to $70 per car! Joe Reaume did not go to the big show at his home track and instead came to Mottville and won his first feature of the season after coming close several times previously!

MS car count jumped to 9 and we paid them $100-75-60-50-40-30-25. If we ever had 16 imagine what we would pay! Nice to see Randy Rigel back Sunday after a long absence! Rookie Jason Schaefer seems to have the bugs out of his MS 61 and finished a very strong 2^nd in the feature Sunday! His uncle, David Schaefer, still is working the bugs out of the new MS 45!

Fred Garrett purchased the number 124 MS and I am not sure what his plan is! Weather he will drive it and skip TC or drive both or what I do not know!

If you want to get into racing real cheap and have a ton of fun act fast! The MTC 99, a very fast car, is for sale for $150 as it sits in the pits and as far I know it runs fine! If you want it call Tim Hutchings at 616-209-3332 but act fast because for $150 I can’t believe it will last long!

Mike Stemmes returned to Mottville after 5 years. As for why he was gone you will have to ask Mike but it was being in a space ship and returning! The unused bleachers gone, new pit entrance from the parking lot out front, new lights in pits, dusk to dawn lights all gone, TC and MTC! BBQ Pork and Sloppy Joe and Ice Cream Sandwiches and bottled water at concession stand!

Some things were the same however, Lillie Pearson still selling tickets, Tom Pearson still pit stewart and Merle Holden still announcing! Mike did say he was impressed with the larger car count and crowd! He is going to be getting a TC soon he says!

Al Maurer and his new bride came to races Sunday and were in the tower with me and had a good time! Al owns Goshen Collision Center and sponsors plaques for the awards banquet and some trophies during the season and it was great to have him at Mottville for the first time in years!

George Rowlette, the last announcer ever at Raceway Park near Chicago has been to Mottville the last two Sundays and he sent me a letter with some interesting things in it! He feels we have now set a record for most nights without a rainout-currently 77 and counting! Our last rainout was June 24,2000. He also feels Randy Morley’s 44 feature wins in one year is probably a national record also!

However, he says our running 70 nights in 2000 is not a record as Raceway park ran 80 in 1951! So that got me to thinking!! We currently have 75 regular season nights scheduled and two off-season races have already been run for a potential 77! So close! Well in 2001 we could add a Wednesday night special for June and August to go along with the July 11 we currently have! That brings us to 79. An off-season race in December would make 80 but that would only tie the record and then only if we had no rain-outs , not very likely! So we would need to schedule at least 82 races to have any chance at the record and 83 would  be more comfortable! Right now I am working on this but am thinking about a 2^nd race in February, early in the month to go along with the late February race. Beyond that the safest bet seems to race the Sunday after Thanksgiving instead of ending the season on Saturday night as we do now and starting Sunday racing one or two weeks earlier than now. Stay tuned for more on this later but I am most serious about setting another national record!

We are now entering into a very busy month! Starting Saturday night we are scheduled to run 13 nights in 5 weeks! 3 of those nights will be trophy nights, July 3 and 4 and Mid-Season Champs on July 15. July 11 is our big Wednesday night special! Speaking of the big special I have received several emails about it and I can tell you that the purse is guaranteed! Holle’s Auto Salvage and Connor’s Auto Salvage and Towing have been most generous in their sponsorship! As for the format beyond the 50 lap feature I really can not say as it depends totally on how many cars we get! We will start about 14-16 in feature I would imagine. Will we have a “B” feature for those not making the 50 lapper? Yes if we have enough cars to warrant it! Will we have last chance races to make the 50 lapper? Yes if we need them, meaning we have more than 16  cars.

If this goes off well then I am considering coming back in August with another one! So far response has been terrific!

One final note before I sign off here and this is a very sad one! A track in our area had a tragic happening Saturday night. I mention this because we have to constantly chase people away from standing in the entrance to the track on turn 3, sometimes going so far as to stop the race to get them to move! People, this is really dangerous! To be safe you need to be behind a concrete wall! If any good comes from all this it is that it will keep us and other tracks I am sure making people get back behind the wall!