ROHLOFF TAKES CHECKERS AT MANITOWOC! By Bill Schlei

June 19, 2002; Manitowoc, WI - Brad Rohloff of Pulaski drove to victory Wednesday night at the Manitowoc Expo Speedway on an evening when Mother Nature finally provided weather conditions in which the fans could enjoy the show.

Rohloff and Eric Scribner of Kiel paced the field to the green flag and stayed side-by-side through the first lap. Unfortunately, before the rest of the field could even complete the lap, Bill LeMieux of Sturgeon Bay and last weeks feature winner Mike Wedelstadt of Hortonville tangled in turn three and the caution flag was displayed.

They restarted the race from the top of the order and this time got in two more laps before the yellow came out again; this time because of a collision between Jared Seifert of Green Bay and Jeremy Jacobs of Egg Harbor.

This time Scribner started from the point and led the field all the way to lap 14 when LeMieux was involved in another scrape, this time with Luxumberg's Chris Derenne and the turn one guardrail. Both were sent to the back and on the restart Rohloff launched more quickly and passed Scribner in turn two to take the lead for good.

Jay Schrafnagel of Beaver Dam was third followed by Scott Boyea of Green Bay and Dean Mauer of Kewaunee respectively.

Next came the IMCA Stock Cars who provided an equal level of spills and thrills to the mods. Mike Wietor and Brett Piontek, both of Green Bay led the field to the start with Wietor taking the lead out of turn two. It was all for naught however when a yellow flag incident occurred before lap one was completed as Rod Snellenberger of Pulaski connected with guardrail in three.

The field was reset to the top of the order and went green to lap five. Piontek was leading when yet another crash stalled the proceedings. This time it was Snellenberger spinning out in turn three after being contacted by Jon Arndt of DePere. Both cars were sent to the back to the obvious displeasure of Snellenberger.

On the restart, Piontek again held the top spot and would continue there for another six laps until he was overtaken by Jeremy Christians who had started in the fourth row but moved up quickly.

Although he would be strongly challenged throughout the remainder of the race by Jamie Colwell of Greenleaf, Christians took the win followed by Colwell, Piontek, Greg Gretz of Kewaunee and Larry Karcz, Jr. of Pulaski.

After the race, a claim was made against Christians by Snellenberger, The claim was accepted.

The Street stocks seemed destined to repeat the mistakes of their IMCA counterparts when the car of Paul Kuene of Mishicot spun out before the completion of lap one. However, Kuene managed to keep his ride under power and continued forward avoiding the caution to the delight of the crowd.

The bad news came only one lap later when the car driven by Von Eycheson threw a wheel in turn three and came to rest on the front stretch. To make matters worse, Doug Morgan of Kewaunee was right behind and didn't see the wheel which he ran over throwing the front end of his car into the air and crashing back to the ground.

Morgan was able to continue, although from that point he was less of a factor in the final outcome.

On the restart Tom Leonard of Two Rivers took the lead and began to create what looked to be an insurmountable lead on the rest of the field. Jason Czarapata of Pulaski had other ideas, however.

Czarapata began running down Leonard on lap 7 when he moved to the second spot. By lap 15, he had moved within a half a car length of the leader and looked as if he were poised to take over.

He never got any father than that, though, as the race ended with Leonard in front, Czarapata second and Keith Kickbusch a distant third.

The Hobby stock division closed out the evening in their customary way; with a bang!

Jason Arenz of Kiel and Phillip Reichwaldt of Manitowoc started up front and battled side by side for two laps when the seemingly unstoppable (three feature wins in four weeks) Eric Wetenkamp threw a wheel coming out of turn two and deposited his ride in the infield.

On the restart the Reichwaldt took the lead for a moment but was forced to withdraw due to mechanical difficulty.

This left Derek Moede of Casco and Andy Waack of Manitowoc to duke it out for the win which came at lap five when the time limit was reached and Waack was declared the winner.

Next week is Joe's Diner Night at the Expo Speedway and perhaps the first opportunity for the Emmert Construction "Shotgun Bounty" Challenge where the pole sitter in the IMCA feature races can elect to start from the back and, if victorious, collect a bounty of up to five hundred dollars on top of the winner's share of the purse that evening.

For more information on this or other topics pertaining to the Manitowoc Co. Expo Speedway go to racingonline.com and click on the Expo Speedway box at the bottom of the page.

MANITOWOC COUNTY EXPO RESULTS - June 19, 2002