POSTED October 15, 2001

Saturday night we raced under the worse weather conditions we have ever raced in at Mottville! It never quit raining the entire night and if that was not bad enough we had a lot of wind! But we had 22 stock cars and 4 karts and the show went on! At pay-off most drivers reported having a great deal of fun which is what it is all about!

Once again the misinformed might well complain about safety but once again it was demonstrated that a wet track is most likely a safer track as the cars and karts are going much slower!

Sunday afternoon the rain finally stopped and skies cleared and when we opened it was beautiful with sunshine at last! But 15 minutes before race time a shower came in and stayed about 20 minutes and got the track wet again! Still we had 28 stock cars and 8 karts!

By feature time Sunday the track did have a racing groove in and features had a great deal of passing! Actually some terrific racing Sunday!

Saturday night Wesley Schaefer was truly awesome! He won the dash, heat and feature, his 2^nd feature win of the season, and no one could come close to him! It was only his 2^nd night out in his brand new MS!

Randy Morley made it 35 feature wins and this time he had his old, old back up engine in the car! Donald Hunley was 2^nd and Paul Scott 3^rd. In the heat coming out of turn 4 on the final lap Morley bumped Hunley battling for the lead and admitted it and gave the win to Hunley! Nice act of sportsmanship on Randy’s part!

Michael Aumack was dominant in the MTC division! He won his 4^th feature and looked terrific on the wet track! Fred Garrett was 2^nd but could not catch Mike! Ray Butler recorded 3 3rds-in the dash, heat and feature!

We tried an experiment Saturday night with the TC division and depending upon your viewpoint it either went very well or very bad! We had heard that TC drivers were paying $50 for radial tires that were not lasting long! So we contacted Good Year and they sent us 4 very hard compound 6 1/2 inch by 15 inch tires to test and we gave them to Eric Root, our season points leader. Eric totally dominated the TC in the dash, heat and feature. Three times in the feature he went to the tail, including the final time with only 3 laps to go and each time he went quickly to the front! The tires were terrific! The trouble was at pay-off we were told by several drivers that they were getting their tires for free at tire stores! Apparently “take-offs.” Anyway how do you beat free? The answer in this case is that you can not beat it so Sunday Eric was back to the radials! Fred Collins came home 2^nd Saturday in the feature and Tom Waddell was back with his Lincoln after many weeks of being gone!

Tyler Hufford was not sure he even wanted to race Saturday (or rather his father was not sure anyway) but race he did and he won his first ever heat and feature and quite easily! He seems to thrive on the wet track!

In hot laps Sunday Jason Schaefer took out his father’s number 54 MS and put it hard into the front stretch wall! Jason reports he will be building Wes a new car this week!

Jason did much better in his own car-winning his 8^th feature of the season! Tim Palmer was back and took 2^nd with Merle Yoder a close 3^rd! Merle also won the dash and heat. Jean Behlke came home 4^th and Terry Kline 5^th. Kline as driving the Josh Salter 47 car. Terry told me he is going to let Jamie drive his SS starting in two weeks!

Collins won his 4^th TC feature of the season in a close finish over Bill Crapo and Melissa Worthington! Crapo won the dash and Collins the heat. In the feature at the half way point Crapo was way back but closed fast for 2^nd!

Garrett recorded  his 10^th MTC feature of the season over Rich Fritz and Mike Aumack. Mike won the dash and Fred the heat. Long after the race it was discovered Fritz had 65 series tires and he will not be allowed to race them again!

Morley won his 36^th SS feature of the season and his engine survived again! Next week he will have his regular and refreshed engine back! Hunley was 2^nd , passing Matt Buzzard on the final lap! Hunley won the dash and heat!

The kart feature was really exciting! In fact it was incredible! Eric McGlothlen won his 6^th feature of the season in a real close finish over Justin Stump and Nick Landon. Landon started last and spun and had to work his way back and was closing fast at the end! McGlothlen is really on a tear now, seems he wins every time out! Greg Brown was running strong and won the dash with Landon nipping McGlothlen and Stump for the heat win!

It was really nice having David T. Schaefer driving the track truck this week –end! Sunday night we used him more as an extra security guard than a push truck driver but his good work really speeded up the program!

Had a nice phone call from a fan from way up north Sunday afternoon who thanked me for opening the track in March and keeping it open through November for the “die hard” race fans! This was in stark contrast to the bulletin board message which briefly appeared on this web site earlier in the week! The writer apparently had an old grudge to settle and his message was full of half truths and outright falsehoods and showed he is greatly misinformed!

What I fail to understand is why some people have so much trouble accepting the fact that we want to run Mottville “out of the mold”! If it works for us what is the problem? Certainly Mottville can never be Kalamazoo or New Paris! Anyone coming to Mottville and trying to run it like Kalamazoo or New Paris will fail miserably! But we are quite pleased with the way we are running it and we are having lots of fun and that is really what it is all about! Getting 22 stock cars and 4 karts with rain all night certainly speaks to that! Coming back Sunday with rain and getting 28 stock cars and 8 karts is truly awesome!

Wow! Only 11 nights left this season! 64 down already! Less than 2 weeks until the 16^th Annual Indiana-Michigan Challenge Cup!

Need to mention before wrapping this up that we have received a 3 year proposal from our present Good Year distributor and it is quite acceptable! It would mean no increase in present tire prices for another 3 years! Still waiting on two other proposals!