May 28, 2004 Chateau Raceway Report by Matthew Grage

The Mike Guttormson Memorial has been plagued by wet weather it seems like for each of its now seven years.  There have been a few postponed races over the years and it was looking like this year would be to as light rain started about the same time the pit meeting did.  However it never amounted to much and when the heat races started the first ones ran in some light sprinkles but local weather officials said it would be brief and not any more than sprinkles.  Well the weather man was right and by the time the heat races were done the track was its fastest as the Track Record for speed fell.  Dean Mahlstad of Garner Iowa rolled off a lap of 16.281 in his heat to set the new standard for the track.  The old mark was timed by stopwatch in 1998 at 17.03 by that years Track Champion Kevin Stoa, formerly of Kasson, now living in Polk City Iowa.  Mahlstad wasn't the only one blowing away the old record as the top three in the feature were all running laps under 16.5 in the Open Modified Mike Guttormson Memorial Feature event.  A season high car count of 105 cars were on hand including 19 drivers making there first trips to the track this season.

Dave Lewison of Adams continues to lead the way in Mod Lite action as he rolled to another feature win, his fourth in five weeks.  Lewison wasted little time coming out of row two and moving to the front on the first lap as he took the win.  Tate Bestor of Harmony took second and is probably wondering what could of been.  With the laps winding down Bestor had reeled in Lewison and looked like he could be a threat however with the race going caution free. Just as he caught up to Lewison they caught the tail end of the field and Dave made it through clean and Tate was held up dashing any hopes of taking the win away.  Jeff Jech of Austin worked from row five up to third.  Heat winners for the class were Mike Gaines of Glenville, Roni Van Riper of Glenville, and Brian Kiehne of Harmony.

Heat 1	Heat 2	Heat 3	Feature
1. Mike Gaines 2. A.J. Wiste 3. Jim Dahle 4. Jeff O’Connor 5. Rick Utley 6. Jacob Schotanus 7. Gavin Wangen	1. Roni Vanriper 2. Tate Bestor 3. Dave Anderson 4. Dave Lewison 5. Todd Kiehne 6. Neal Goergen 7. Drew Jech	1. Brian Kiehne 2. Jeff Jech 3. Corey Whalen 4. Rob Cue 5. Larry Dahle 6. Greg Kral 7. Derek Olson (dns)	1. Dave Lewison 2. Tate Bestor 3. Jeff Jech 4. Mike Gaines 5. Roni Vanriper 6. Rick Utley 7. Jeff O’Connor 8. Corey Whalen 9. A.J. Wiste 10. Todd Kiehne	11. Greg Kral 12. Jim Dahle 13. Drew Jech 14. Dave Anderson 15. Gavin Wangen 16. Jacob Schotanus 17. Larry Dahle 18. Rob Cue 19. Neal Goergen 20. Brian Kiehne 21. Derek Olson (dns)

May 25, 2004

A friendly reminder that there is NO RACING at Deer Creek for our class and Late Models this coming Saturday, May 29th. It's a USMTS show and we weren't included this time around. That is the only regular weekly event we are excluded from, so far, at Deer Creek.

Weather permitting the race is still on at Chateau with the Mike Guttormson Memorial Race on Friday, May 28th.