HURON — One WISSOTA late model driver could be $15,000 richer following two big nights of racing on tap at Dakota State Fair Speedway during the 2021 Wheel Jam festivities on the South Dakota State Fairgrounds.
Leading things off will be the Structural Building’s WISSOTA Late Model Challenge Series event, presented by Tschetter Hohm Clinic, at 7 p.m. Thursday, which pays $5,000 to the winner. The second event will be Challenge Cup 19, presented by Prostrollo Motors of Huron at 7 p.m. Saturday, with a $10,000 top prize.
“Everything is together and ready to go,” said longtime DSFS track promoter Orville Chenoweth. “We’ll have the whole same crew there that we’ve always had. When we raced here in August (2020) everything went click, click, click, so we are all set.”
The WISSOTA street stocks and Midwest modifieds will be joining the late models for Thursday’s racing program, with just the Midwest modifieds and late models returning for Saturday’s program.
“A lot of people think we are doing the WISSOTA modifieds also on Thursday, but there was some advertising out there that didn’t include the Midwest part,” Chenoweth said. “We will just be running the street stocks and Mid mods on Thursday.”
With the two racing programs in Huron being combined with Challenge Series events in Aberdeen on Friday and Watertown on Sunday for the South Dakota Tour, Chenoweth is looking for a quality field of cars.
“A lot of these guys want to make the longer run with all four races going on. I talked to drivers from Nebraska who said they were going to come and a bunch from out west want to make it.,” he said. “I’m assuming we are going to have 40-50 late models.”
Along with the quantity of drivers on hand for the events will be the quality of drivers that come with an expanded payout. Many of WISSOTA’s top late model drivers have visited the Huron oval during past events and will be making the trek for this year’s as well.
“We’ll have the top of the crew come down for these races,” Chenoweth said of the quality of the drivers expected.
Included among the contenders to claim the top prize on each night will be a bunch of local drivers, who are shown to be the best-of-the-best that WISSOTA has to offer.
One local driver looking make a run at collecting the cash will be Cole Searing of Huron, who made the switch to late model last season after winning a WISSOTA Midwest modified national title in 2018.
“I’m looking forward to not having to drive out of town for the race, it’s only 3 or 4 blocks from my house,” Searing said. ‘You always miss your hometown race track and I think with Wheel Jam he’ll have a packed grandstands. It is always fun to race in front of a lot of people.
“It’s always fun to be back here for a couple of days, not have to drive so far and be able to socialize with all our family, friends and sponsors that come down after the races. And hopefully end up with $10,000.”
While he’s turned a lot of laps around Dakota State Fair Speedway over the years, not many of those were in a late model. However, Searing says the few times he has been able to get on the track has been quite helpful.
“I think we are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were last year,” he said. “We still had a good end to the year last year in the late model, but we’ve changed a bunch this winter and still have a lot of changes going on with the car, so I think we’ll be better this year here.”
Despite having some success during the later stages of last season with his late model, Searing further proved he could be considered a contender, when he finished third in the 2021 Structural Buildings WISSOTA Late Model Challenge Series event held Monday at Granite City Motor Park in Sauk Rapids, Minn.
“We started on the front row, led a few laps and fell back a little bit, but I think we learned a few things and we were able to compete with them guys so hopefully we have a good weekend,” Searing said. “That was my first Challenge Series race ever, but I have raced a couple bigger shows like the Rumble in Aberdeen was $10K and the King of the Dirt in Fergus Falls and the John Seitz Memorial, so I have experience with those guys. Hopefully we’re a little better on our game this year than we were last year and hopefully make something work.”
Thursday’s racing program at DSFS will be the fourth of 17 scheduled events in 2021 for the Challenge Series.
Darrell Nelson of Hermantown, Minn., won the opening event at Princeton Speedway in Princeton, Minn., while Pat Doar of New Richmond, Wis., won the second event at Rice Lake Speedway in Wisconsin.
Jeff Massingill of Keewatin, Minn., is the most recent winner on the Challenge Series, winning Monday in Sauk Rapids.
Ricky Wiess of Headingley, Manitoba (Canada) is the most recent Challenge Cup winner at the Huron track after earning the win in 2018. The Challenge Cup was rained out in 2019, while the 2020 event was cancelled due to COVID 19.
Don Shaw of Ham Lake, Minn., won both events at DSFS in 2017 after Jason Krohn of Slayton, Minn., recorded the sweep in 2016.
Scott Ward of Watertown was the 2015 Challenge Cup winner, while John Kaanta of Elk Mound, Wis., who finished second on Monday, was the 2014 winner in Huron and Kent Arment of Aberdeen, who is the all-time winningest driver in DSFS with 193 feature wins, was the 2012 Challenge Cup winner.
