Belland, Ison Among Winners at TNT’s Season Finale By Jeremy Mayo

September 8, 2007; Three Lakes, WI - TNT Speedway wrapped up the 2007 season Saturday night with its annual Fall Special, a run for fun event that attracted a strong car turnout and some wild racing.

There were no heat races on the night, just 20-lap features as part of the non-sanctioned night of racing. Two of the races had to be cut short due to time.

The Midwest Mods had one of those races. Incidents happened in mid pack during the feature, which continued to shuffle up the running order. Bruce Belland and Joe Kin comprised the front row and stayed at the top for all 16 laps.

Belland would pull away from Kin, only to see his lead erased with each yellow flag, but in the end Kin was no match for Belland, who pulled away on the green-white-checkered finish to capture the win.

The other race that failed to make the 20-lap distance was the Stinger feature. 17 cars quickly bunched up three and four abreast and quickly got into trouble. The benefactor of all the trouble was Shawn Depies, who moved up from the inside of the second row to the lead by the completion of lap two.

More cautions stunted the race’s progress and prompted the to finish under the green-white-checkered. Bill Martin made a strong run at Depies but came up short at the line.

The TNT Bombers surprisingly made their 20-lap distance after completing just three laps on Season Championship night. Jake Ison continued a solid second half of the season and captured the win. Despite starting ninth, he rocketed to fifth on lap one, third on lap four and to the lead on lap four.

From there Ison checked out while Jeremy Melton and Brian Kin battled for second. Melton got the better of that battle. Todd Brass and Jerry Skubal rounded out the top five.

Jeff Brown took the lead on lap one of the Street Stock feature. He passed Cliff Houle and Neal Slizewski to take the top spot. The next lap, Slizewski and Houle made contact, triggering a seven-car wreck. On the restart, Brown checked out and took an easy win over Jeff Hoogland, Justin Paulsen and Dave Williams.

Jeff Becker took the win in the Trucks. He and Mike Bostwick were staging a great battle at the halfway point of the race, and were going side-by-side for the lead when a caution came out for a spin by Harold Harvey. On the restart, Becker pulled away and Bostwick could never reel him in.

At the end of the night, TNT Speedway handed out its year-end awards. TNT Bomber driver Todd Brass was named this year’s Most Improved Driver. WISSOTA Midwest Mod runner-up Joe Kin was named Sportsman of the year.

At the beginning of the evening, WISSOTA Street Stock driver John Johnson was married to long-time fiancée Sue Crawford in an on-track ceremony. It was the first such event at TNT in the track’s 13 years of operation. Both bride and groom wore driver’s suits during the ceremony. Rev. Emerson Coy wed the couple.

TNT Speedway would like to take the opportunity to congratulate John and Sue Johnson. Also, we would like to thank our sponsors, fans and employees for another successful season. Racing will resume in Three Lakes in May 2008.



RESULTS: TNT Speedway – Saturday, September 8, 2007

Midwest Mods: 1st 22B-Bruce Belland; 2nd 7-Joe Kin; 3rd 2-Jerry Grasse; 4th 27-Jimmy Barttelt, Jr.; 5th 04 Jimmy Barttelt; 6th 70-Chuck Abraham; 7th 8D-Neal Dixon; 8th 15S-Cody Schmidt; 9th 15-Rob Rodziczak; 10th 28T-Keith Troutman; 11th 52-Terry Stebbeds; 12th 13R-Will Roffers

Street Stocks: 1st 8-Jeff Brown; 2nd 38H-Jeff Hoogland; 3rd 1X-Justin Paulsen; 4th 17-Dave Williams; 5th 23M-Kevin Maulson, Jr.; 6th 11-John Johnson; 7th 2-Neal Slizewski; 8th 06-Scott Heikkinen; 9th 74-Cliff Houle; 10th 3-Mike Vogt; 11th 26-Jordan Kurtti; 12th 22-Charlie Jackson; 13th 64-Krystal Koehmstedt; 14th 1-Fritz Scharf

Trucks: 1st 8-Jeff Becker; 2nd 38-Mike Bostwick; 3rd 99-Robin Procknow; 4th 26-Paul Bostwick; 5th 44-Harold Harvey; 6th 15-Forrest Crandall; 7th 1-Travis Widder; 8th 26-Casey Cox

TNT Bombers: 1st 001-Jake Ison; 2nd 81-Jeremy Melton; 3rd 11X-Brian Kin; 4th 2T-Todd Brass; 5th 61-Jerry Skubal; 6th 84-Dave Bauer; 7th 01Z-Ron Reese; 8th 69J-Jonathan Collins; 9th 22-Wilt McGee; 10th 11-John Johnson, Jr.; 11th 28-Chriz Statezny; 12th 29-Scott Bender

TNT Stingers: 1st 13X-Shawn Depies; 2nd 27-Bill Martin; 3rd 13-John Barlowski; 4th 41-Dennis Mikkelson; 5th 29T-Matt Troutman; 6th 81M-Marci Melton; 7th 11-Mario Grado; 8th 58-Jason Gaylord; 9th 18-Bobby Sheldon; 10th 68-Joe Dorgan; 11th 26-Kenny Weisman; 12th 31-David Scott; 13th 87-Jason Issacson; 14th 26N-Leo Nippa; 15th 75-Cory Dickman; 16th 43-Bryce Cuggino