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NEW RICHMOND, Wis. -- Despite cold, windy weather with rain showers scattered throughout the area, the 2nd Annual Triple Crown event was held at the Cedar Lake Speedway on June 1. The weather felt more like April 1, but a solid field of cars was on hand in each division.
In only his second appearance at CLS, 16-year-old Lucas Schott from Chatfield, Minn., drove to an impressive victory in the $5,000-to-win NASCAR Modified 40-lap feature. Schott had to hold off Rodney Sanders from Happy, Texas, on the final lap to win by less than a car length at the checkers.
Amazingly almost no rain fell at the track all day long, but the sunny skies from the morning turned grey and overcast during the afternoon hours. Rain fell in many places around the track, but CLS stayed dry for the most part and they hung in there to present what turned out to be a very good night of racing. Coming off an extremely rough track the week before, the CLS track crew worked hard all week long to firm up the new clay despite less than desirable weather. It paid off, as there were only a total of four cautions combined amongst all three divisions in 110 feature race laps.
The 27-car NASCAR Modified field was filled with talent. Cory Mahder, Schott and Jeremy Houle topped the heats while Ross Prochnow won the B-Main. Schott and Joey Jensen brought the 24-car starting field to Jeff Stacken's green flag, and it was Schott grabbing the lead from the get-go. The race was slowed three times under caution in the first 19 laps, but Schott was able to race to the lead on each restart. During the final 21 lap green flag run to the checkers, 13th starter Rodney Sanders continued his march towards the front. Sanders got by Jensen on lap 26 to run third behind Thatcher. It took Sanders until lap 37 before he got by Craig Thatcher for second. Sanders closed in on Schott, and the race for the lead got real interesting on the final lap in lapped traffic. Sanders came up a little short at the checkers and had to settle for second. Thatcher, Jensen and Cory Mahder completed the top five. Rounding out the top ten were Brandon Jensen, 14th starter Ashley Anderson, 20th starter Darrell Nelson, 24th starter Scott Splittstoesser, and Brent Larson. Nineteen of the 24 starters were still running at the finish with 15 cars on the lead lap.
A special thanks to Joe Stariha at Como Oil & Propane for adding $2,000 to the top spot in the NASCAR Modified feature and for paying the temporary NASCAR license fee for those drivers who were not NASCAR licensed drivers.
Triple Crown Feature Race Summary - June 1, 2013:
NASCAR Modifieds (40 laps): Lucas Schott, Rodney Sanders, Craig Thatcher, Joey Jensen, Cory Mahder, Brandon Jensen, Ashley Anderson, Darrell Nelson, Scott Splittstoesser, Brent Larson, Dale Mathison, Jeremy Houle, Al Uotinen, Shaun Kelley, Eric Pember, Doug Gustafson, Chris Oertel, Bob Gierke, Matt Leer, Jesse Glenz, Ron Jones, Ross Prochnow, Jason Krohn.
Nonqualifiers: Ronnie Rihn, Adam Ayotte, Cody Erickson.
