By Scott J. Owen
SEYMOUR, Wis. (June 14, 2024) – Fantastic weather and a full pit area of 143 cars greeted fans Friday night at Outagamie Speedway.
Action on the track though was hot and heavy as Johnny Whitman, Nick Buckarma, Max Oreskovich and Roland VanDeHei III secured feature wins. Buckarma’s IMCA Sunoco Stock Car win featured a last lap pass to win by .026 seconds over Chase Parker
That feature was as exciting as tin foil in the microwave as Parker fended off a multitude of challengers for the majority of the race. Rod Snellenberger, Devin Snellenberger, Travis Van Straten and Buckarma continually fought right on the back bumper of Parker.
Buckarma found an advantage in the highest groove of the track. On the final lap Buckarma pulled even with Parker and would score the win by an eyelash, .026 seconds, over Parker. Van Straten, Austin Jansen, and Devin Snellenberger would round out the top five. It was the first win this year for Buckarma.
Cole Slezewski took the lead at the start of the Friesen Performance IMCA Northern SportMod feature. Oreskovich and Jordan Jahnke soon joined the battle for the lead. Oreskovich used a lap 11 restart to move to the outside of Slezewski and completed the pass for the lead on lap 12.
Jahnke soon passed Slezewski as well to move to second. Jahnke pulled even with Oreskovich on the final lap, but Oreskovich was not to be denied his first win of the year. Jahnke had to settle for second followed by Dustin Smits, Slezewski and Aaron Butterbrodt.
The Friesen Performance IMCA Modified feature proved to be the Johnny Whitman show as he led all 20 laps of the race for his second win of the year. Joel Crowbridge held off Josh Long for second. Konnor Wilinski and Marcus Yarie took fourth and fifth, respectively.
And the Mach-1 IMCA Sport Compact feature saw VanDeHei go wire to wire for the win. It was not easy, though, as Shaun Bangert and then TJ Everard challenged him through the first half of the race.
In the end it was VanDeHei chased across the finish line by Ben Schulte, Bangert, Everard and Thomas Schulte. The win was VanDeHei’s first of the year.
Racing will continue next Friday night with extra money on the line in the IMCA Sport Compact division as the winner will take home $500. Pits open at 4 p.m., the grandstands open at 5 p.m. and racing will start at 6:30 p.m.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.