Loch Back In Victory Lane at Slinger! By Weyer / Margetta

August 25, 2002; Slinger, WI -  Rich Loch made a late race pass of rookie Chris Petersen and then held off Lowell Bennett to nail down his third late model feature win of the year in the Go Wireless/U.S. Cellular 60 Sunday night at the Slinger Super Speedway.

Photo Highlights

After a close second place run last week, Rich Loch (#55) captured the Late Model feature victory this week grabbing the checkered in the Go Wireless/U.S. Cellular 60. Rich Loch (#55) slips to the inside of Toby Rott (#38) on his way to winning the Late Model main event.  Current point leader Lowell Bennett (#2) follows Loch past Rott for a better position. Rookie Chris Peterson (#73) continued his string of fine performances, this evening he would take third in the Late Model feature.  He is shown working past Toby Rott (#38). After taking a feature win last week, Eric Fransen (#16) backed up that performance by besting a field of over 40 cars for fast qualifying honors. Brad Hartman (#82) came out on top of the Late Model consolation race. Veteran racer Bill Prietzel (#5) won one of the Midwest Sportsman dash races this evening. James Swan (#97) captured fast qualifying honors in the Midwest Sportsman division.  The class was making it's second appearance of the season here at Slinger. Ron Schmitt (#6) captured the Eldroado Trailer Sales Midwest Modified ash race for the second straight week Current Slinger Stinger point leader Paul Wagner (#53) took the lead on the final lap of the feature to earn the win. Joe Cool! Joe DeStefano Sr. (#18) won the Slinger Stinger dash race and later scored a solid second in the feature event.

Loch started from the inside of the third row and remained firmly in the top five while Petersen charged into the lead over Toby Rott and John Mueller. Mike Strupp slapped the wall on the front stretch to bring out the first caution flag on lap 13. Petersen held onto his lead on the restart over Rott as Mueller faded back, allowing Loch and Bennett to move into third and fourth. The top five fell into single file order as further back, Conrad Morgan spun off turn two. Morgan’s car came to rest in the infield and the race remained under the green flag.

The top four cars ran nose-to-tail at the halfway mark with Petersen still leading to collect the $100 Mac Tools Halfway Bonus. Al Schill and Eric Fransen began to reel in the top four as the leaders began to catch lapped traffic. With Petersen still leading, Loch was able to get to the inside of Rott to take over second on lap 39 and Bennett capitalized on the opportunity to grab third.

Loch began to gradually reel in Petersen when the first year late model driver’s car started to kick loose exiting the corners but it appeared Loch would run out of time as the laps wound down. That changed on lap 45 when Rott spun out of fourth place on the backstretch and then Austin Konetski spun in turn one to bring out the caution flag. Petersen valiantly tried to hold off Loch on the restart, but he could not keep his car down on the inside and Loch was able to pull alongside with seven laps to go.

Once he got position using the inside, Loch completed the pass for the lead as once again Bennett followed him to move Petersen back to third. Bennett was unable to make a run for the lead over the final laps and Loch raced to his third feature win of the season. Bennett crossed the finish line in second while Petersen turned in another impressive performance and finished third. Schill and Fransen rounded out the top five.

“It feels good to win when we didn’t start up front as we just had things go our way tonight,” Loch said afterwards. “Up until this year, we hadn’t won more than one feature. We were happy with two and now we’ve got three. The car’s been fast.”

Mike Egan bested Brad Mueller and Cindy Peterson to take the win in the 30-lap semi-feature and Brad Hartman was the winner of the 15-lap consi. Mike Strupp looked strong in winning the fast dash and Eric Fransen set fast time with an 11.757 second lap.

Wes Biswell chalked up his third win of the season by claiming top honors in the 30-lap Midwest modified feature.

Gregg Pawelski led a closely bunched field to the start and held the top spot throughout much of the first half of the event while Biswell, Ed Grober, Dan Jung, and Ron Schmitt fought for positions behind him. Dale Prunty and Jeff Holtz soon joined the lead group after advancing from their row five starting spots.

Pawelski maintained the lead until lap 20 when Biswell was able to race around on the outside for the top spot. Pawelski became caught up behind lapped cars and Grober and Jung also passed him to move into second and third place respectively. Schmitt and Holtz bounced off each other while racing for fifth which momentarily slowed both drivers. Prunty muscled Pawelski out of the top five on the final lap as Biswell held off Grober to take the win. Jung crossed the finish line in third ahead of Prunty and Schmitt.

Prunty turned the fastest lap in qualifying with a time of 12.604 seconds and Schmitt won the fast dash.

Paul Wagner was in the right place at the right time in the 20-lap Slinger stinger feature as a last lap, last turn wreck involving the leaders found him advancing from third place to the win at the finish line.

Dave Obermeyer and Nathan Fick paced the field to the green flag with Obermeyer able to secure the lead from the outside lane. Wagner, Joe DeStefano Sr., and Roger Schmid moved through traffic to battle for the third spot behind Obermeyer and Fick as the laps began to wind down. Fick moved alongside of Obermeyer with less than five laps to go and the two staged a side by side race for the lead as Wagner, DeStefano, and Schmid closed in.

On the final lap, Obermeyer and Fick made contact while exiting turn four, sending both them spinning into the infield as Wagner threaded his way through to capture the win. DeStefano finished second just ahead of Schmid and David Pichler. Fick was credited with fifth place as he crossed the line sideways in the infield and Obermeyer also finished in the infield in sixth place.

Jason Feyereisen was the fastest qualifier for the second time this season with a 13.405 second lap and Joe DeStefano Sr. won the fast dash.

Bobby Gutknecht turned back a late race challenge by Josh Bauer to win the 25-lap Midwest sportsman feature.

Gutknecht and Bill Prietzel advanced to the front of the field by lap five as Gary LaMonte, Ron Weyer, Shawn Utphall, and Bauer raced side by side behind them. Bauer began to march toward the front as he was in third place by the halfway point leaving Weyer and Utphall to race for the fourth spot. James Swan entered the top five a few laps later when Utphall fell off the pace with mechanical problems. Bauer caught and passed Prietzel for second on lap 20 and immediately began to close in on Gutknecht for the lead.

On the final lap, Bauer nudged Gutknecht and tried to get alongside while entering turn one. Gutknecht was able to power ahead exiting turn two and then blocked any similar move from happening when he slammed the door on Bauer entering turn three. Gutknecht was able to hang on and scored the win over Bauer who finished a close second. Weyer closed out a strong run with a third place finish while Prietzel took the checkered flag in fourth place. Swan, the feature winner the last time the division raced at Slinger, finished in fifth place.

Swan set fast time with a 12.972 second lap and Prietzel captured his first Slinger Speedway checkered flag by winning the first heat. Josh Nelms won the second heat race.

Al Stippich and Doug Pasbrig won the team cruiser race to post their third win of the season and Chris Price was the winner of the Figure 8 event. FM 106 WMIL personality Scott Dolphin won the Port-A-John Speedway Guest Car race and Rick Schaefer drove his Oldsmobile Cutlass to victory in the spectator elimination races.

For Complete results from the RACESTAT computer CLICK HERE