Mid-Season wins taken by Burkoth, Carlton, Bishop and Tillman!!

By Dale R. Erdmann

June 21, Lake Geneva, WI.

It was the first day of summer and a beautiful night for racing at Lake Geneva Raceway. The elements were all positive, a large crowd, perfect weather, lots of race cars, the mid-season championships, but a single negative element followed the events all night. A full moon, it the events were proof positive that full moon racing can play it's part in an evening.

Kent Burkoth of nearby Pell Lake, WI, a 1990 Sportsman champion, has not won a Late Model feature since 1993, but Saturday Night, he drove a great race, to win the Super Late Model 30 lap feature.

Kent Burkoth broke a Late Model feature win dry spell that dated back to 1993, when he captured the Mid-Season Championship feature Saturday Night at Lake Geneva Raceway. The win has put him solidly in the top five in points.

Dennis Carlton, of McHenry,IL won his third Herb's Street Stock feature of the season in an event that only saw a single caution. Rolf Tillman from Woodstock, IL ran away with the 12 lap 102.3 XLC Sport Truck feature, which was his fifth win out of six tries this season. The program was sponsored by Bennett Auto Repair and Comfort Heating and Cooling. Track officials would like to extend a sincere thanks to the News Sun for supplying pictures of tonight's show.

On the full moon side of the program a record number of fines, for a single night of racing, for rules infractions were levied by the end of the evening.

Late weeks Super Late Model feature winner David Ray Salentine climbed into the lead from his outside front row starting berth. Denny Hiffman, Ronnie Darnell, Burkoth and Mike Simon were all over each other for the runner-up spot.

Terry Patnode and Jim Kjellander got together in turn two for the first slowdown on lap seven. This is when things began to get wild. It took two more tires to get a single lap in, as Billy Skinner Jr. first got his nose piece ripped off, and then quickly heading into the pits. Bobby Giers who was running ninth, spun into the soupy infield, cause by five inches of rain that fell during the morning. Giers pulled onto the track, bringing mud and water, with him. This caused Kjellander and Mark Simonsen to get together and a long delay to clean up the track.

That move sent Giers to the pits. Then an altercation with a fellow driver transpired in the pit area, gave a disqualification to Giers for the entire evening.

Finally underway Salentine slipped out front one more time, with Darnell and Burkoth all over the leader. Salentine however was up to the call, with Hiffman and Simon side by side for fourth. Meanwhile Fran Prestay the defending Late Model champion was on the move up form his 16th starting spot.

Prestay would advance as far as the leader, Salentine, when the pair made contact on lap 19 sending both cars out of the event. This left Burkoth as the race's new leader. With Chad Barker, returning from his accident two weeks ago, advancing into the runner-up spot for the restart.

By lap 24 the top three of Burkoth, Barker and Darnell were all in a tight battle performing some of the cleanest and tightest racing of the season before fans who were on the edge of their seats. Darnell got around Barker with just four laps to go to assume second.

At the wire Burkoth took the victory, with Darnell and Barker close behind in the next positions. Hiffman, Simon and Al Schill,who blew an engine in qualifying and worked his way through the semi, in son, Al Jr.'s car rounding out the top six.

The Street Stocks battle close! Here rookie of the year contender Jerry Cowan (#67), battles with early feature leader Lyle Messinger (outside.) Cowan would fare better of the pair finishing seventh in the main event.

For the second straight week in a row Lyle Messinger shot out front of the 18 car street stock feature. Two more rookies, Troy Weber and Jerry Cowan followed.

Meanwhile Scott Kuxhouse was advancing through the field and by lap six he was on the leaders bumper taking over the top spot one round later. Zac Deering followed Kuxhouse to move into second and Messinger faded.

Thing up front got even tighter, as Carlton zipped into fifth by lap ten and continued his march foreword. Front runners Adam Reginer and Landry Potter tangled on lap 15 bringing out the caution just as Carlton had slipped into the lead.

Both Potter and Reginer were sent to the rear for the restart which would be a 5 lap dash to the checkered. Carlton went on to pick up the win over a fast closing Denny Norton Jr. Deeringer was third, Kuxhouse held onto fourth with Kurt Getchell finishing just ahead of Weber. In all, 15 cars were on the track and on the lead lap.

Shane Bishop of Pell Lake, WI took the victory in the Performance Unlimited Mid-American/ Sportsman division. It was Bishop's first feature win of the 1997 racing season, and it elevated him to second in the point standings behind Paul Loppnow.

Shane Bishop battled with Brad Troxel for the lead throughout the first eight laps of the Sportsman event, which included a slowdown on lap three for an incident between Ed Kubicz and Rick Corso. A second caution flew on lap six, as Jason Hicks made contact with point leader Paul Loppnow and Bobby Gutknecht also became involved.

With the race underway again, Bishop held command with Dave Lohse who had been working hard on Troxel taking over second.

Jeff Storm who is the Mid-American Stock Car Series point leader, borrowed the car of Rick Schmidt when the scheduled Mid-American event rained out in Michigan advanced into third by lap 11.

This created an awesome race and in the end Bishop barely edged out Storm, with Donny Kachelmeier, Scott Koerner, Lohse and Corso taking the top six spots.

He keeps winning.... and winning!! Rolf Tillman has now won five of the last six 102.3 XLC Sport Truck feature events. He just missed a clean sweep when he finished second in his heat race.

The non-stop Sport Truck main event needed just two laps to be recorded before the unbeatable Tillman moved around early race leader Jim Phillips and cruised to an easy victory, over Dan Ross, Butch Edwards Jr., Chad Ross, Phillips and Fran Caravetta.

Next Saturday Night, June 28th, 1997, the Select Performance Legend cars and Sportsman class, join the Late Models and Street Stocks for a full program of racing.

Time Trails are slated for 6:00 P.M. and races begin at 7:30 P.M. sharp.

RESULTS

HEAT ONE: 1.) Holtz, 2.) Joe Fischer, 3.) John Simon
HEAT TWO: 1.) Darnell, 2.) David Ray Salentine, 3.) Burkoth
HEAT THREE: 1.) Barker, 2) Prestay, 3.) Jim Kjellander

HEAT ONE: 1.) McAluiffe; 2.) White; 3.) Wolfe
HEAT TWO: 1.) Weber; 2.) Peterson; 3.) Cowan
HEAT THREE: 1.) Potter; 2.) Carlton; 3.) Norton Jr.

HEAT ONE: 1.) Bishop; 2.) Lemmens; 3.) Lohse
HEAT TWO: 1.) Bobby Gutknecht; 2.) Joe Fransisco; 3.) Hicks