July 29, 2003; Eagle River, WI. -38 drivers took to the track for Coca-Cola Night at Riverside Raceway. The night featured some new faces in the winner circle and a tightening of the points in the WISSOTA Street Stocks, the Bandits and the Super Bandits.The WISSOTA Midwest Mods Presented by Miller Lite hit the racetrack first. Bob Kleinschmidt led every lap and took the win. Chuck Gross spun out on lap five and sustained enough damage to his car to keep him from starting the feature. In the feature, Scott Anderson started from the outside pole and took the early lead. It took a few laps for Duane Dunbar to get up to second. Dunbar began to chip away at Anderson's lead and was allowed to close to Anderson's back bumper when Troy Smart spun out of third position, bringing out the caution. On the restart, Anderson and Dunbar staged yet another battle for the win at Riverside. Anderson was able to take Dunbar's line away from him. Dunbar would close in on Anderson several times down the backstretch, but lost all his momentum when he tried to dive inside in turn three. Anderson held on to win his fourth feature of the season at Riverside, all in the month of July. Dunbar was second. Spencer Bolte scored another top three finish. Guy Carley and Bob Kleinschmidt rounded out the top five. In the WISSOTA Street Stocks, Fritz Scharf passed pole sitter Ken Valeria on the opening lap, and held off Valeria for the remainder of the race to score the win. Valeria would come back strong in the feature. Once again, Valeria drew the pole
position, but this time he was able to take the lead. That was all Valeria needed. He
dominated the remainder on the race and scored his first feature victory of the season.
Kevin Maulson was second. Fritz Scharf finished third and saw his lead in the points
trimmed to four. Bruce Belland Jordan Kurtti took the heat race for the Super Bandits. James Williams won the heat
race for the regular Bandits. The Pure Stocks once again proved to be the class with the most action. Dennis LaCrosse won heat number one. Mark Schuenemann won heat number two. Schuenemann worked past LaCrosse early on in the feature and looked to be in position to score his first Pure Stock feature, but coming into turn three, Schuenemann spun out by himself. The culprit was a flat right rear tire and Marlys Scharf was the first under the checkered flag for what would have been her third feature victory of the season. What caused Schuenemann's tire to go flat was the rear bumper of Ron Reese's car, which fell off on the white flag lap. Following the race, all the track officials gathered for about a five-minute meeting, in which Schuenemann was declared the winner. The reason Schuenemann was declared the winner is because Reese was given the black flag for his loose rear bumper with a handful of laps remaining. Reese never observed the black flag, his bumper fell off, and Schuenemann ran over it. Because Reese never observed the black flag, he was disqualified from the feature and scoring was reverted back to 14 laps complete. Schuenemann was declared the winner. Marlys Scharf, Joel Miller, B.J. Slizewski, and Rob Rodziczak rounded out the top five. Next week at Riverside is the second annual 4-Cylinder Shootout. We expect a full field
of Bandits and Super Bandit to show up for the big money race on OK Auto Night. |
