There are a lot of outrageous claims being made in the world today.  Some companies tout their products to be the best ever made.  Some say they provide the best service. Some will even make outrageous claims despite not really being able to back them up.

Over the past several years the Slinger Super Speedway has advertised that they are the world’s fastest quarter mile oval.  A claim that could in part be substantiated since their top division, the super late models, consistently run faster than any other track that runs them.  The problem lies in the fact that another track, Anderson Speedway in Indiana, runs the much faster sprint cars, whereas Slinger did not.

That all changed on Saturday night when the Slinger Super Speedway welcomed the Xtreme Sprint Car Series to the famed high banks.  Everyone anticipated a new world record would be set.

Earlier in the year a few cars tested at the track and opened up everyone’s eyes as to the potential speed.  Anderson Speedway has had a record time of 10.28 seconds to lay their claim.  However, in just practice, and with used tires and little adjusting, cars were right at the 10.2 mark.

Race day approached, and the moment of truth was at hand.  Several drivers flirted with the world record before Troy DeCaire became the first driver to crack the ten second barrier with a time of 9.998 seconds.  Then it was Ryan Litt’s turn to set the record.  Litt turned in a lap of 9.942 seconds.

Jeff Bloom then hit the track and lowered the time even more.  Bloom’s lap of 9.908 seconds became the fastest of the day.  Thus setting a new world’s record.

““I’ve heard about this place but had never actually been here and seen the track,” said Bloom.  “I heard it was a real high banked quarter mile and it was real fast so I set the car up for a high banked race track.  We were close and I really didn’t change it.  I was pretty close never having seen the track.  During qualifying I lifted.  I ran half throttle in the corners and full throttle getting in.  I had to pull out to half throttle, then squeezed it back down.  There’s enough banking here and with some more time I think I could get to where I could run around here wide open.  That would knock another three tenths off.”

Could a lap of 9.6 or better still be run here?

“I think it would be close.  Today it was really hot and high humidity,” explained Bloom.  “On a cool night either in the spring or fall when the track is more abrasive, I think it would be close.  I didn’t get to use the whole motor, and I didn’t use the right gear, so if the track had been more abrasive I would’ve put more gear in it.  I think if we ran here a few more times we could get close to 9.50 if not quite there.”

No matter how you look at it, that is flat out hauling it. It makes you wonder if it is possible for a car to run this track wide open and turn those incredible times.  For now, 9.908 is the new world record.  All it takes now is for the people at Guinness to recognize it.  Once they do, the Slinger Super Speedway can without a shadow of a doubt lay claim to being the World’s Fastest Quarter Mile Oval.

Surfers will tell you to ride the crest of a wave for as long as you can.  Dennis Prunty has been riding the crest of good fortune and hard work since the 2010 racing season began.  Sunday night was proof positive of Prunty’s continued assault on the wave of the high banks of the Slinger Super Speedway, as he slipped past Conrad Morgan to notch his sixth win of the season in the Kwik Trip 60.

Despite having to work his way through traffic with the invert, as well as being the beneficiary of points leader Lowell Bennett’s blown motor, Prunty had to work hard for this victory.

“Starting inside of Conrad Morgan (on a late race restart), man that thing’s got some horsepower,” said Prunty in Victory lane. “It was tough holding that boy off.”

Prunty had to work doubly hard as he not only had to hold of Morgan for the final four laps, but also battled Steve Apel until contact between the two brought out the yellow with four laps to go.

A fete Prunty was quick to explain.

“I drove my ass off,” exclaimed Prunty.  “Can I say that? I had to work for it.  It definitely wasn’t handed to me.  At one point I was back to 11^th in that race and I was able to work my way up through the pack.  A lot of other people were unfortunate as things happened to them and it helped me out.  You know sometimes luck is on your side.”

A former Slinger and NASCAR Champion, the late Alan Kulwicki used to say you had to make your own luck.  Perhaps Prunty’s success this season is an example of that mantra.

Perhaps it was luck or maybe even karma, as Prunty started from the number 7 position.  The same number made famous by Kulwicki in NASCAR.  Tommy Pecaro and Steven Schulz led the field to the green

Schulz would nose out ahead of Pecaro at the drop of the green flag as the two ran side by side for the first two laps.  Schulz was able to clear him coming off of turn two, and Lowell Bennett was able to slide past Pecaro and into second place.  Schulz and Bennett began to pull away as the rest of the field rode side by side behind them.

The race’s first yellow would fly on lap 7, when the hood came off the car of Nathan Matz in turn two.

Bennett took advantage of the high side on the restart and pulled past Schulz on lap 9.  That lead would be brief, as the yellow would fly again on lap 11 when Matz again was the cause.  This time he spun in turn three, when contact between Prunty and Tommy Hromadka caused a bottleneck .  Matz came into turn three a little hard and spun to avoid contact.

Bennett decided to restart the race from the outside, and got the jump on Schulz and then grew his lead to a half straightaway.  Schulz was then joined by Mike Egan to battle for second place with Prunty still mired in seventh place on lap 22.

Lap 24 nearly brought out another yellow when Scott Schoeni nudged Tommy Pecaro coming off of turn four and Pecaro spun into the infield.  Schoeni, who raced his way into the feature by winning the Semi-feature, was quickly picking off cars and moving towards the front.

Egan got underneath Schulz on lap 31 coming off of turn two to take over second place.  Schulz was then hung out to dry on the high side as Steve Apel, Josh Wallace, Tommy Hromadka, and Dennis Prunty all got by.  While all this was going on, up front Bennett steadily pulled away to a full straightaway lead.

Prunty would make short work getting around Hromadka and Wallace, and began to chase down Apel.  Prunty would then take advantage of Apel getting loose off of turn four on lap 40.  Apel would regain the spot a lap later just before the caution would fly again on lap 42. This time for contact between the cars of Hromadka, Wallace, and Brad Dahmer.

Bennett would once again choose to restart on the outside, and made it work.  Bennett jumped out to a sizable lead once again, while Apel and Prunty were both able to get around Egan to take over second and third.  Scott Schoeni quietly snuck into fourth place and was also on the move.

Bennett appeared to be on cruise control and headed for yet another victory, when suddenly the motor exploded heading into turn one.

“We blew holes through both sides of the motor that you could shove a 2x6 through,” said Bennett.

Bennett flooded turn one with oil and the cars of Fred Winn and Josh Wallace both spun when they hit the oil, but both were able to continue.

With Bennett done for the night on lap 49, that set up an eleven lap shootout between Apel and Prunty.

Once the green flew Apel and Prunty waged war over the next seven laps.  While Prunty would officially lead laps at the line, Apel would gain the advantage through the corners.  Apel would have the usually preferred lane on the low side, but Prunty has made no bones about how much he likes the outside.  That being said, you just got the feeling watching this action that there would be more fireworks to come.

Then it happened.

Apel and Prunty made contact heading into turn one, causing Apel to spin and bringing out the yellow on lap 56.

“He (Prunty) was pinching me down lap after lap,” said an angry Apel. “Going into turn one he came down and he touched which sent me around.  I don’t understand why Dennis cannot run me clean. I would have loved to race Bennett for the win because I know he is a clean driver, unlike Dennis.  Next week is a double points night so Dennis better watch out!”

Prunty, who has made it be no secret that he will not be racing next week, despite Bennett’s misfortune, clearly saw things with Apel differently.

“I don’t know what happened. We ran hard for I don’t know how many laps there, five?” said Prunty.  “I don’t know if he lost it inside me or I never felt him that we made contact so I don’t really know what happened.”

Could it be as simple as two cars fighting for one piece of the track?

“Yeah, maybe,” said Prunty.  “I know earlier in the race when I was actually behind him he got really loose and I was able to drive around on the outside of him.  I was kind of just waiting hoping he gets loose again.  Like I said I really don’t know what happened how he spun out. He seems to not be very happy with me right now, but we haven’t talked or nothing though.  What I do like about this is we do tape the races and we can always look at it and if I did something wrong I apologize, but I really don’t think I did.”

Perhaps a small consolation for Apel, but the incident did set up an awesome battle to the checkers.

The restart with four laps to go saw Prunty and Morgan sharing the front row.  From the drop of the green, both drivers inched their way ahead if ever so briefly. As the laps were winding down, first Prunty then Morgan would get a nose ahead of each other at the stripe.  Seemingly neither driver had an advantage as they swapped the lead three times in the last four laps.

Coming to the checkers, Prunty was able to squeeze his nose past Morgan and beat him to the line by a scant .059 seconds.

“I chose the inside because I know Conrad has a lot of horsepower and it would be hard to clear him on the outside,” said Prunty.  “Wow, I almost didn’t get him.  I drove as hard as I could and I’m sure he drove as hard as he could and he was hooked up better than I have seen him all year. I finally got him at the end though. I tell you it wasn’t easy.”

Morgan, while disappointed at finishing second, was happy at the progress his team has made.

“I thought we got real good bit out there on the outside,” said Morgan.  “If the race was one lap less I would have won it.  I don’t know if it had been a couple laps longer if I could have got back up there again. I got loose a bit there coming off of two after the white flag and that was all he needed was four or five feet to beat me. We didn’t touch at all he pushed a little bit coming off of four coming to the checkered flag and I saw it happening so I moved up a little bit out of the way, which didn’t really slow me down any, but I just didn’t want us to rub fenders which would have slowed me down worse than it slowed him down.  It was a good clean race.”

Mike Egan held on for third place, and Scott Schoeni made it up to fourth.  Randy Schuler rounded out the top five. Points leader Lowell Bennett wound up in 12^th place and saw his points lead dwindle to a mere 66 points with only six races left.

Chris Blawat picked up his second Late Model win of the season holding off Rob Braun and Jacob Vanoskey.  John DeAngelis and Mike Graczkowski finished fourth and fifth respectively.

Ryan Farrell scored his first career feature win in the Mid-American Sportsman division in just his second ever race in the series.  Farrell nudged his way past Chris Ratajzyck on lap 20, and survived several bumps from Ratajzyck to notch the victory.  Gregg Pawelske came home in third place, while Jack Stearn and Jay Shambeau rounded out the top five.

Eric Lingford picked up his second Thunderstock feature win holding off Ken Schraufnagel and John Daley.  Andy Welter and Nathan Fick completed the top five.

Nick Wagner got a huge jump on a late race restart and took the checkers in the four cylinder Slinger Bees event.  Wagner, started on the outside and jumped to the lead when Braison Bennett’s car didn’t accelerate as fast on the restart.  Bennett recovered to finish in second place, while points leader Alex Prunty wound up in third.  Brandon Tacked and Russ Lorbiecki came home in fourth and fifth.

Scott Goetzke scored his third win in the Figure 8 division holding off Justin Poenitsch and Shane “The Shark” Becker.  Rick Bruskiewicz and Brandon Wolf rounded out the top five.

Chris Harmen picked up the win in the Spectator Eliminators.

Al Roberts won the Speedway Guest car feature.

Bill Michaels won the Celebrity Race comprised of local celebrities from area media outlets.

AWESOME!

Let me begin by saying I am a race fan, not a big fan like my friends Sparky and summer but I am a fan of all types of racing.  I want to tell everyone I know how fantastic the Bucyrus 200 nationwide race at Road America was one of the best events I have seen in many, many years!

The fans were fantastic, I will say I believe their were more fans at this event then any Indy event or other major event I have seen their.  Again Fantastic.  The weather, fantastic!

So the race, aggressive from the start.  The bets around the media lounges were how many folks would go into the gravel in turn 1 & 5 on the 1^st lap?  Well we all lost as they all made it through unscathed. The drivers seemed to tip toe through the 1^st 20 laps until their was “the incident” 9 drivers thought they could make it through corner 7 all at one time.  Mistake!  Major Mistake, Road America was not designed to fit these massive stock cars through corners like that hence a red flag and a 31:31 race stoppage.

 This was another issue when speaking with fans that we had a concern about would there be too many full course yellows or even a red flagged race and we got it. To the benefit to the drivers and the NASCAR officials the major delay was around the oil in the middle of the turn where the drivers dive into the corner aggressively.

 20 laps into the race and the aggressive driving begins, Paul Menard gets knocked around and goes from 3^rd into 11^th, Carl Edwards and Jacques Villeneuve both were in the top 10 actually 6^th & 7^th with 10 laps to go and Jacques makes a power move into the corner going 3 wide at times on the straights to get his position on the field.

 Edwards as well was being aggressive, having lead most of the race by large margins (7 seconds at times) unfortunately for him the aggressive driving in the last 20 was causing full course yellows and kept bringing the field back to his rear bumper.

 With Edwards and Jacques jocking for the lead ended when Jacques engine gave way with 2 laps to go to end his day in the pack while Carl had Brendan Gaughan on his tale for the runners up role on this day.

Carl takes home the 40-pound marble trophy designed by Harley Davidson and a brand new Harley Davidson, which he announced he was going to auction off for charity after the race.

Carl stated fellow racer Boris Said helped him with the course giving him pointers last night in Sonoma, CA.   “At end the transmission was grinding in 3^rd gear, I was not sure if I should skip 3rd and go to 4^th I was just praying it would hold up.  And it did!

Coming into the Bucyrus 200 the real winner to begin the practice was Paul Menard, the local racer with the familiar name.  Having grown up on the four mile Road America track in Elkhart Lake, Wi Paul was able to take advantage of this knowledge with top lap times of 136.551 mph 0.673 faster than Owen Kelly.

NNWS 2 time WI winner (at Milwaukee) could only muster a 5^th best. and tore out a front side panel in the pee gravel around corner 8.   Not the practice start Carl wanted. Every driver I watched had an issue with corner 5 except for Menard which is both a blessing and a curse, I have a feeling their will be a lot of Yellow flag’s flying around the course.  I do hope they make the flag’s more of the area and not full track yellows that would kill the race in my mind.

After the practice laps this morning the Menards 98 car was the fastest car based on time.  Watching the drivers I was suprised at how long it was taking the guys to get adjusted to the course.  Guy's like  Carl who went into the dirt twice were commenting on how hard it was to get adjusted to this course, what this tells me is that the guys who are going to be flying back and forth between the two series races here for Nationwide and Sanoma for the Sprint are going to have an issue because now they do not get the Saturday practice time to work out the kinks.  One of the best interview questions this morning was to Carl Edwards on what he thought of thr course?  "It is awesome!"  "Beautiful track, and area, now I need to stop looking around at it and learn to drive it."

Brad Keselowski also liked the track.  "I love this place, it will be great to race it."  Just like Carl I am hoping to learn from Paul by following him around the track all day today."

It is great to see the Bucyrus 200 presented by Menards at such a legendary track and I look forward to a great race....More on Saturday.