6/1/2023
Wissota Late Model Challenge Series
Doar Shuts Down Zimpel Late for Ogilvie Challenge Series Win
The 2023 season for the Structural Buildings WISSOTA Late Model Challenge Series rolled along on Saturday, May 20th with the first visit of the season to the Ogilvie Raceway in Ogilvie, MN under perfect 75* sunny skies for the track’s 2023 season opener and the series all-time winner Pat Doar only lead the final two circuits en route to his series leading 37th victory in a thriller of an event.
2022 series runner-up Shane Edginton set the fastest lap of the night and won the $100 CMD Race Shocks Shock the Clock Award with a time of 15.493 seconds to start the night. Qualifying heat races went to Andy Jones, Josh Zimpel and Dave Mass to set the 27-car feature field.
Late Model rookie Jones earned the My Race Pass pole and lead the field to the green in his M&B Services #173. Jones took the lead at the drop of the green and worked quickly away from the field as outside front row sitter Zimpel and Darrell Nelson engaged in a great battle for second as Jones drove out to a sizeable lead early in the 40-lapper.
Jones continued to pace the field out front with Zimpel, Nelson and Dave Mass in a great battle just behind. The first 18 laps of the race ran green with Jones out front before the first of a pair of cautions slowed action for a Max Nelson issue in turn three.
On the restart, Zimpel took advantage and rolled by Jones into the lead with Mass taking a look to the outside of Jones for the runner up spot as well. Zimpel led lap 19 before Jones took the top spot back a lap later, only to be slowed by the second and final caution of the night for a Kevin Eder breakdown.
On the ensuing green flag, Zimpel led the double file restart back to green only to have Jones take the lead once more and race by the start/finish line in the top spot on lap 21 before Zimpel snatched it away on the following circuit and began to build up an advantage over the battle for second which now saw Pat Doar, Nelson and Jones in a tussle for runner up honors.
Laps continued to click off with Zimpel working his way into lapped traffic as Doar was able to sneak by Nelson and Jones into the second spot. With Zimpel holding as much as a 2.5 second lead over Doar, who was searching high and low to try to run Zimpel down out front.
In typical Pat Doar fashion, he cut into the lead lap after lap and with just under five to go began to pressure Zimpel for the lead and was able to look to the inside of Josh and steal the lead at the line as the white flag flew. Doar’s lead with one to go was 0.059 seconds and he was able to extend his advantage on the final circuit to race to the 37th career WISSOTA Late Model Challenge Series victory of his legendary career. Doar edged Zimpel by 0.584 seconds for the $2,000 victory. Nelson ran third ahead of Jones and Jake Redetzke, who rounded out the top five at the line.
Dave Flynn advanced 13 positions to win the Speedwerx Hard Charger Award. Jones was the GTX Rookie of the Race and Zimpel won the night’s best slidejob award.
Braden Brauer won the WISSOTA Street Stock feature, David Swearingen won the WISSOTA Midwest Modified main event, Brady Uotinen won his first WISSOTA Modified feature, Cole Chernosky won the Supers and Joseph Wilber won the Hornet feature event to wrap up the night.
Full results: https://www.myracepass.com/events/444537/races
The second series swing of the season will take place with visits to the KRA Speedway in Willmar, MN on Thursday, June 8th, the Fiesta City Speedway in Montevideo, MN on Friday, June 9th, the Madison Speedway in Madison, MN on Saturday, June 10th and the Casino Speedway in Watertown, SD on Sunday, June 11th.
Submitted By: Camryn Sullivan