Published: May 5, 2015
Hartford native finally gets victory at hometown track
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
SLINGER — Mike Held has won preliminary races and features
at every track he’s raced at — eight of them — throughout his 21-year career.
But he had never won a feature at the track closest to his
heart and his hometown — Slinger Superspeedway.
That changed Sunday when the 34-year-old Hartford native won
the 40-lap limited late model feature, holding off Kyle Chwala on a restart
with seven laps to go.
“I’m speechless,” Held said in victory lane.
Held took the lead from Jack Stern on lap 13 and led the
rest of the race.
For Chwala, it was his career-best finish in only his third
career late model start. Chwala won 17 features in the last two seasons in the
area sportsman division and won the track championship each year.
Alex Prunty, the feature winner in the season opener, was
third, followed by Ricky Heinan and Grant Griesbach to round out the top five.
For Held, this was a wait that was far too long.
“I waited 20 years to get this trophy,” he said. “I’ll be
getting more, I swear.”
Held’s day started as good as it could have, setting fast
time in qualifying with a lap of 12.162 seconds. That narrowly missed the track
record set by Prunty in the opener (12.065), but beat Trevor Dassow’s mark that
was the record until Prunty broke it (12.269) and that was set in 2009.
It was a struggle to win a feature because Held always
seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He hasn’t had to deal with a
lot of mechanical failures that might’ve cost him a feature victory. It was
things like a yellow flag coming out with only a few laps to go while leading.
On the ensuing restart, someone would get the best of him and he’d come up
empty.
Last season, Held competed in 14 limited late model
features, with his best finish being fourth June 15. And to help him fend off
Chwala, Held turned in his fastest lap of the race with five laps to go.
“A lot of effort has gone in to get to this point,” he said.
“It just didn’t come very easy for us. We just didn’t have the luck portion
with us. Today, we finally put it all together.”
❑
Short-lived track record
Carl Benn broke the Slinger Bees track record during
Sunday’s qualifying, breaking Jacob Schraufnagel’s mark, which he set April 26.
Benn turned a lap in 14.644 seconds, eclipsing
Schraufnagel’s 14.670.
Schraufnagel broke Steve Dickson’s mark of 14.672, which was
set Aug. 24. Later in the session, Brandon Tackes also surpassed Schraufnagel’s
time, turning a lap in 14.654 seconds.
❑
Johnny Sauter wins Joe Shear Classic
Johnny Sauter held off his nephew Travis Sauter to win
Sunday’s Joe Shear Classic at Madison International Speedway with the ARCA
Midwest Tour.
Ty Majeski, last season’s Rookie of the Year and series
champion, was third, followed by 2005 Slinger Nationals champion Nathan Haseleu
and Nick Murgic.
Travis Sauter’s father, Tim Sauter, was sixth.
Other notable finishers were James Swan in 14th, Ross
Kenseth in 21st and Griffin McGrath, who was second at last season’s Howie
Lettow Memorial at The Milwaukee Mile, was 27th in the 28-car field.
Hubertus’ John DeAngelis failed to qualify for the 100-lap
main event.
The seventh annual event is named in honor of the late
fourtime Slinger Nationals champion (1987, 1990, 1991 and 1993).
Shear, a 2013 inductee into the Southeastern Wisconsin Short
Track Hall of Fame, is one of only three drivers to win Slinger Nationals in
back-to-back years. The others are the late Dick Trickle (1982 and 1983) and
two-time Daytona 500 champion Matt Kenseth (2008 and 2009).
❑
Scheffler returns to victory lane at Beaver Dam
Don Scheffler won Saturday’s modified “A” main at Beaver Dam
Raceway, his first since July 27, 2013 — a span of 18 races.
In the 2014 season opener and coming off a track
championship, Scheffler’s car flipped over in a crash and missed the next four
races. When he returned his best finish was sixth twice and had one additional
top-10 finish in nine starts.
Also winning the main event in their respective divisions
were Mike Mueller (legends), Kenny Richards (grand national), Jeff Steenbergen
(sport modified) and Jason White (street stock).
On April 26, Steenbergen became the first driver in track
history to win a feature in each of the five divisions, completing the feat in
a street stock.
Slinger’s Joe Johnson returned to Beaver Dam on Saturday,
taking last season off after winning the track championship in the legends
division in 2013. He finished eighth in the feature.
Hartford’s Will Schumacher was 11th in the grand national
feature, Richfield’s Jim Bucher was 11th in the legend feature and Germantown’s
Dave Jaeger was 12th in the modified feature.
❑
Soon-to-be Hall of Famer starts season with victory
Kewaskum’s Don Goeden won the 360 sprint car division 'A'
main in Saturday’s season opener at Plymouth Dirt Track.
West Bend’s Paul Pokorski was fifth and Slinger’s Jason
Johnson was seventh.
The other feature winners were Don Sorce Jr. (grand
national), Rick Scheffler (late model) and Cody Pankow (outlaw compact).
Goeden will be inducted into the Southeastern Wisconsin
Short Track Hall of Fame in November in Hartford.
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