ARLINGTON, Minn. (May 20, 2023) – Last year’s track champions led the way to victory lane once again in almost all the feature events for the 43rd season opener at Arlington Raceway. There were 115 cars ready to compete in front of the stellar crowd.
Cory Probst started 11th and was in the first spot by lap four in the IMCA Sunoco Hobby Stock feature. A yellow flag was thrown for his dad in the 175C on lap two which enabled Cory to get ahead after the restart. He went onto lead the rest of the race with Chad Volk taking second and Tayte Harazin taking third ahead of brother Payton Harazin.
Nate Coopman had command of the Mach-1 IMCA Sport Compacts by the third time around the track from his fifth place start. Alan Lahr started on the pole and managed to stick with Coopman and hold of Justin Dose, who took third.
There was a yellow flag on the first lap of the Friesen Performance IMCA Northern SportMod feature, which sent three cars to the work area. When the race restarted, Matt Looft stomped on the pedal and took the lead and that’s where he stayed for the duration of the race.
Ben Reierson and Tony Stephensmeier swapped second and third place a couple times but the last few laps Stephensmeier was battling to get to the front. Looft held on and won the race. Reierson finished third.
Trevor Serbus led the entire IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car feature in the flag-to-flag race. Justin Allen, who had started on the pole, was running with Serbus until the 1300 of Brett Allen got around him on lap six.
By then, the two top drivers were already contending with lapped traffic. In the end, three lapped cars were between the two drivers with Serbus finishing first. Allen took second and Matt Johnson took third.
Dan Mackenthun had a clean sweep for the night in the IMCA Sunoco Stock Cars. Chad Schroeder was the early leader but after a restart on lap 13, he was able to get around the 74 of Tim Pessek to take the second spot on the track.
For the remaining laps Mackenthun and Schroeder raced side-by-side but as they were reeling in on the end, Mackenthun pulled away to win the race. Schroeder took second, Matt Speckman took third and Matt Olsen took fourth.
Dalton Magers was the first lap leader in the Friesen Performance IMCA Modified feature but by the following lap Brandon Beckendorf, who had started right behind Magers, had control of the race and stayed out front for the duration to win. Todd Stinehart took second, just ahead of Dan Menk.
Best appearing cars in each class were won by the following: Hobby Stock, Travis Koester; Sport Compact, Nicole Kelzer; SportMod, Joey Reimers; Sprint Car, Brett Allen; Stock Car, Ryan Bjerkeset; and Modified, JJ Reimers.
Hess Technology sponsored the awards and Joey Reimers won a wrapped helmet as his golden ticket was drawn.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.