By: Ashley Iwanski & Kevin Ramsell
(West Salem, WI – October 7, 2011) Neil Knoblock put his name in the history books as the fifth different winner of the Dick Trickle 99 at the 42nd Annual Livewire Energy Oktoberfest Race Weekend. Knoblock joins Steve Holzhausen (2007), Nathan Haseleu (2008), Chris Weinkauf (2009) and Dan Fredrickson (2010) as winners of this popular event.

It was a wild start to the first segment, as it appeared that Fredrickson and fast qualifier Griffin McGrath got together at the green flag. McGrath went for a spin into the outside wall and collected Nathan Haseleu. The field doubled up for the restart with Fredrickson and Schendel on the front row. Fredrickson would take the lead. Four laps later Schendel moved to the inside of Fredrickson and took over the top spot. Schendel held on to the lead for six laps before Fredrickson went back to the top of the scoring pylon and would drive to the first segment win. Neil Knoblock and Erik Darnell would get by Schendel to finish second and third. Boris Jurkovich rounded out the top five.

Colin Reffner was on a Friday night cruise in the second segment. He took over the lead on lap four from Steve Carlson and didn’t look back. A multi-car wreck on lap ten when the field checked when Frank Kreyer and Dennis Prunty got together in turns one and two. Some involved were Fredrickson, Chris Eggleston, and Mark Kraus. On the restart, Reffner pulled away from Brandon Hill and went out to about a straightaway lead. Tim Schendel was able to move through the field and finish second with Hill in third. Erik Darnell was fourth with Andrew Morrissey rounding out the top-five.

After two segments, Schendel was in the lead with six points with Darnell in second with seven. Reffner pulled a three to create and 11-car invert for the final segment.

Fredrickson was on the pole for the final segment with Jurkovich on the outside. The winner of the first segment took off and drove away from the pack. A scary wreck occurred on lap ten when Colin Reffner went around in turn three and collected Eggleston. Fredrickson took off on the restart and pulled away from Jurkovich. Behind him, fans were watching the battle between Knoblock and Darnell after Schendel fell back to eighth, which basically took him out of the overall win. Fredrickson would easily win the final segment with Jurkovich in second. Knoblock’s third place finish gave him the overall win by one point over Fredrickson. Dennis Prunty was fourth and Darnell finished fifth to finish third overall.

Cardell Potter drove away to the win in the Stubby 30-lap event. This event was for the cars that didn’t qualify for the Dick Trickle 99. Potter started on the pole and led all 30 laps. Behind him, Mark Eswein worked his way around Joel Theisen with four laps to go and took over the second spot. Potter had a huge lead and wasn’t challenged for the win.

Corey Jankowski got by Nick Barstad with 13 laps to go and went on to win the Dick Trickle 99 C-Main. Barstad held on to second.

It was a case of déjà vu in the Area Sportsmen feature. Last year in this same race Rick Schermerhorn and Brent Kane battled for the race win that Schermerhorn took by half a car length. Schermerhorn held off Kane again this year to take the Area Sportsmen to finish first in this race for the second year in a row. But, Schermerhorn was dealt a tough blow when he was disqualified after post race inspection. Kane was then given the official race win.

Kane had to work to get to the front though. Kane charged forward from a back-of-the-pack starting position to take the fourth position at the half-way point. Four laps later he was in the second position after going to the outside of Jes Tenner. Kane then got a break.

A caution came out with eight laps to go putting Kane on the bumper of race leader Schermerhorn. Kane made a couple of moves to get to the inside of Schermerhorn, but was getting loose exiting the corners. Schermerhorn was able to run a clean line to finish one car length ahead of Kane, but wasn’t allowed to keep the win due to disqualification. Randy Humfeld finished second officially and Jes Tenner third.

Dan Gilster won the hard-fought Super Sportsmen feature after battling side by side with Rick Grunden. Gilster started toward the back of the pack and was able to make up a lot of ground in the first half of the race, sitting in fourth by lap 16. Gilster then flew past Scott Hamel for the third position.

A yellow flag came out with seven laps to go. It took two shots to restart the race and on the second restart Gilster jumped into the lead. Grunden didn’t let him get away though. The two were side by side with two laps to go until Gilster got a jump on Grunden and soared to a first place finish. Grunden fell back to third and Brian Back took second.

The Big-8 Late Models will race on Saturday, Oct. 7 with the Outlawz, Mid-American Stock Cars and ASA Midwest Tour preliminaries. The ASA Midwest Tour will run a 100-lap feature on Sunday, Oct. 9 following the Big-8 JMcK 63 Invitational, another 3-segment feature race. Also racing Sunday are the ASA Midwest Trucks, Vintage Cars, Hornets, Bandits and a 4-Cylinder Open. For more information please call the Speedway office at (608) 786-1525 or visit www.lacrossespeedway.com.

La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway is a proud NASCAR Hometrack, part of the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series – www.hometracks.nascar.com.

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