(April 6^th 2013 – New Richmond, WI) The Cedar Lake Arena kicked off its 2013 regular season with a 9 division program on Saturday, April 6^th which saw Mankato, Minnesota’s Todd Tachney take a thrilling win in the NASCAR-sanctioned Hornet division to highlight a wild night in the arena. Cedar Lake Speedway’s 55^th season opener was delayed by weather, but the Arena was rocking tonight as a large crowd spent some time checking out the indoor racing action for the Hornets, Micro Sprints, Slingshots, Outlaw 600 Modifieds, XL600 Modifieds and 4 divisions of Quarter Midgets.

            After the 4 divisions of Quarter Midgets raced on the mini track and saw Jack Larson win the World Formula division; Jack Berger win the 160 division, Tyler Janecek win the 120 class and Trinity Kelley outrun her brother to win the 120 Blue class, the five remaining division took to the big track for their respective feature events.

            The XL600 Modifieds put on one of the best races of the night with Winona, Minnesota’s Jeff Matjeka leading all twenty laps, but Joe Provinzino and Bob Cisewski swapped the runner up spot countless times while trying to chase down Matjeka out front. The race was slowed by three caution flags, which kept Provinzino challenging out the high line, but Matjeka was too strong and raced to his first victory at the Cedar Lake Arena in impressive fashion.

            The Outlaw 600 Modifieds were up next with Dave Finstad leading the way over first time racer Chase Viebrock at the start. The duo ran door to door at the front of the field over the first three laps before Finstad took control out front. Once Finstad got to the front all eyes were on Dave Brandt, who won at the Arena two weeks prior as he marched his #11 into second early on. A caution on lap 6 set up a double file restart with Finstad again taking control until the second and final caution flew on lap 13, setting up a seven lap shootout. On the restart Jeremy Schubert, who started 7^th got into Finstad and turned him sideways just enough for Schubert and Brandt to race by momentarily, but Finstad faught back to second on the next circuit. Schubert now lead as the laps wound down and on the final lap Finstad threw his #7d to the cushion and made a thrilling move to steal the lead back and the snatch the win as the field raced out of turn four in a near photo finish. Schubert came home second with Brandt in third.

            The final race of the night was the NASCAR Hornet division which was the first event sanctioned by NASCAR of the 2013 season for the Hornets and saw Dan Knish and Ashley Bell pace the field to the start of the 20-lap finale. Knish and Bell raced side by side out front for the first several laps until Knish cleared Bell and tried to take off to stretch his advantage, but the race, which went non-stop, saw several tense moments on the 1/5 mile oval as lapped traffic played havoc for the leaders which allowed third starting Todd Tachney to creep up on the leaders and steal the lead as the field raced to the white flag. Tachney lead the final two laps in a wild shootout with the leaders splitting lapped cars left and right to become the first NASCAR winner of 2013 for the Hornet division. Knish finished in second with Justin Schelitzche in third. 

            Ty Sampair took the lead from the outside of the front row in the Micro Sprint division and withstood two caution flags to hold off Iowa veteran Merlin Schnurr for his first career victory.

            AJ Hoff lead all ten laps of the Slingshot main event to hold off the brother tandem of Jim and Joe Chisholm in an exciting feature, which came down to the last lap.

Racing is scheduled to resume at Cedar Lake Speedway on Friday and Saturday, April 12^th and 13^th with the next race in the Arena to be held on May 4th. Check out www.cedarlakespeedway.com  for more information.

SUMMARY:

NASCAR Hornets

Feature: Todd Tachney, Dan Knish, Justin Schelitzche, Darrell Wold, Ashley Bell, Blake Dorweiler, Brian Adams, Eric Schultz, Barrett Hammond, Ollie Swanson, Eric Albrightson, William Voeltz, Matt Doughty

Outlaw 600 Modifieds

Feature: Dave Finstad, Jeremy Schubert, Wade Brandt, Buzz Pool, Devon McMartin, Chase Viebrock, Brandon Nelson, Brian Wannarka, Aaron Fullerton, Tim Nelson, Anthony Kramer, Jason Christianson, Matt Schliesman, Ben Sprung

XL600 Modifieds

Feature: Jeff Matjeka, Joe Provinzino, Bob Cisewski, John Griffin, Greg Wohletz, Bob Timm, Alex George, Todd Kiehne, Kurt George, Curt Luhman, Chris Denner, Burce Schmitt, Nicholas Wagner, Cole Denner

Slingshots

Feature: AJ Hoff, Jim Chisholm, Joe Chisholm

Micro Sprints

Feature: Ty Sampair, Merlin Schnurr, Abby Berger, Collin Olson

World Formula Quarter Midgets

Feature: Jack Berger, Cody Klugherz, Jack Larson, Collin Olson

160 Quarter Midgets

Feature: Owen Carlson, Jack Berger, Tristan Swanson, Cody Miller

120 Quarter Midgets

Feature: Tyler Janecek, Ally Berger, Owin Giles, Cody Miller, Madi Larson, Luke Bohl, Alex Bohl

120 Blue Quarter Midgets

Feature: Trinity Kelley, Carson Madsen, Cole Kelley