POSTED July 23, 2025

Two more nights at the Mottville Speedway and they were radically different nights! Saturday afternoon a severe thunder storm came rolling in around 1 pm Indiana time and several area tracks had cancelled by 2pm! Now why did
they cancel and so early? IN my opinion they cancelled because it was hot and humid and they feared a small crowd and losing money! Fortunately at Mottville we have set our program up to race despite the weather and Saturday night we profited greatly from this! We had our largest crowd of
the season, the largest crowd for the 3rd Saturday of July since 1997 and our largest crowd period since late last September!

 Yes it was certainly hot and humid but despite this we had no fights at all! Car count certainly has been better-we had 8 SS, 8 MS, 7 MTC, 5TC and 6 Karts. Ron Hughson, Jr. purchased 3 new Good Years and went out and easily won the SS feature but Scott Baker and Terry Kline really fought it out for 2nd and
when they hit some very slow moving lapped cars Baker went high and got by before Kline and took home 2nd! We had exciting races in all divisions and we were still over by 10 pm!

Sunday was even more hot and more humid than Saturday! Our early starting time actually worked against us! When we started at 6 PM Michigan time we had next to no one in the stands! Two area tracks had specials and our car count suffered from that and from the heat and humidity! We had 6 SS, 5 MS, 4 TC, 5MTC and 2 Karts. Racing was very good and Jamie Kline won an
exciting TC feature over Melissa Worthington when she went from last to first after the cars were turned around! The finish between Nathan Aumack and Fred Garrett for the MTC feature was so close I was most grateful I was not the scorer who had to decide it! Wow! The SS was different to say the least! Bill Crapo scratched due to engine problems and thus 5 cars started.
Tony Muzzillo went 6 laps and pulled off, leaving 4 cars. Terry Kline was challenging Randy Morley for the lead and had transmission problems and left, now we had 3 cars left! Morley was not running well at all but still won because 2nd place Melissa Worthington had a bad miss in her engine and
3rd place Dale Kendall could not seem to find a way around Worthington! We almost had a former Bomber car win the SS feature! Personally I am confident that had Scott Baker been there he would have won hands down! Heard he was at a family gathering. Jeff Brunt had heating problems again Saturday night but had he been there and not running hot he certainly could have won also!

Anyway despite the weather we ended up about break-even and saw some good racing! Paid MS and SS far more than the rules call for with the car count! Forgot to mention the Wednesday, July 11 special race e in my column last week. I was most disappointed in the MS car count-15-but certainly had the fast cars! No way we could possibly have paid the purse we paid without our sponsors Holle's Salvage in Syracuse and Connor's Auto Salvage and Towing in Goshen. Many thanks again to both of them. Crowd was about as expected but if I run a show like this again I will try Sunday night. Unless some sponsors pop up soon we will most likely not try it again until the Indiana-Michigan Challenge Cup in October. I know I should have ran SS instead of Bombers for the Wednesday night race and also some other areas I can change.

 We have now run 39 of 75 races on the season and as we start the second half, a look at the point standings might well be in order! The closest division right now is the TC division where Melissa Worthington has only a 112 point lead over Eric Root! Had Melissa not run Sunday Eric would be the leader! This one may well go to the wire! Paul Zimmerman had big time car problems last week-end and now has a 516 point lead over Nathan Aumack. Not a certainly at all! Merle Yoder now has a 485 point lead over defending champion David Schaefer which would appear safe since Merle has a back-up car but I have seen bigger leads than this one disappear before! 3rd thru 6th is really close between Wesley Schaefer, Jason Schaefer, John Yoder and Jean Behlke. John Yoder blew his engine Saturday night and may well miss a couple of weeks. Has anyone seen any sight of the Behlkes? Randy Morley has the SS lead by 761 over Scott Baker, but the big question is can Morley keep his temper under control and win his 3rd season points title and 2nd in a row? Stay tuned on this one! Terry Kline has moved to within 280 points of Baker. Guess what? Morley is loaning Kline a transmission! That is the way it works at Mottville! Paul Scott is working on his SS and we hope to see him back at Mottville soon! IN karts Andrew Behlke leads his father by 145 and his grandfather by 910! So his only real competition, Greg Brown, is 1417 behind! Would be a clinch if Andrew were running but we have not seen him in 2 week-ends now! 

Besides being hot for the fans and drivers it was hot for the track officials! Rita Courtney certainly has it the toughest on these hot and humid nights flagging and selling 50-50 tickets! No way to give her air conditioning that I know of! Shelly Lauderdale, our security and EMT, is also out in the open all night! I know I must have sweated off 5 lbs myself going up and down the tower stairs each night! 
Good to see Susan from Buchanan and her mother and her brother from Texas back to Mottville Sunday night! Her mother had serious surgery recently but seems to be doing well. Susan is really a big fan of the Kline's and was most pleased when Jamie won again Sunday night! This was her brother's first time ever at Mottville!

Well, weather its hot and humid or cold and snow or rain you can count on one thing! We most likely will be racing at Mottville every Saturday and Sunday until the end of November and we hope to see you there!