Adams Wins WISSOTA 100; Other Area Racers Also Do Well

By Ed Reichert

Huron S.D. - Kevin Adams won the WISSOTA 100 Modified championship Saturday night, September 15th at the Dakota State Fair Speedway to highlight the performance of several area racers who participated in the event. The WISSOTA 100 is the premier racing event for all racers who run under the WISSOTA sanctioning organization with over three hundred and thirty racers gathering in South Dakota representing six states and Canada. Also participating in the four days of racing at the State Fairgrounds speedway were Cameron racer Curt Myers, Rice Lake's Sam Fankhauser, Kolby Kiehl from Barron, Shane Halopka from Greenwood and Cody Kummer from Medford.

Adams had a nearly perfect week of racing in Huron and went home with the big money in every event he participated in. After dropping out of Wednesday night's qualifying feature while leading due to a mechanical issue, he requalified on Thursday night and won the feature race which gave him the outside pole for Saturday night's thirty lap feature which started thirty three cars, starting three wide on the big half mile track in Huron.

Adams qualified for the Modified Race of Champions due to being a former national champion and he won that special race on Friday night, earning $1,600 for that win.

Saturday night he led all thirty laps of the Modified feature as he won $6,000 for the victory. He dominated most of the race before closing out a late charge by Dave Cain from Corcoran MN for the win. Kevin Eder from Ashland finished third. The win was Adams' ninth overall WISSOTA 100 victory , a record for the organization.

To top off the great weekend, Adams was also entered in Orv's Pot of Gold, a WISSOTA 100 promotion open to only the top thirty drivers in the national point standings that travel to race in Huron. A blind draw cuts the potential winners to five in each of WISSOTA' s six classes and then on Saturday, in front of the feature night crowd, they draw one driver's name and he wins the pot, named after event promoter Orville Chenoweth. Out of the thirty drivers in the final draw, Adams' name was the lucky won drawn and he won a whopping $10,000 for that, with his winnings coming as ten thousand silver dollars which he shared with the lucky youngster who pulled his name out of the hat.

At last report, Adams continues to run third in the national point standings through events in Huron.

Myers had a good week in South Dakota also. He won a qualifying feature race on Thursday night but opted to drop the position for Saturday and instead, requalify on Friday night as he seeks more national points in his continued battle for the Super Stock national championship with Brainerd Minnesota's Tim Johnson.

Myers finished second in his qualifying feature race which gave him a second row starting position in Saturday night's finale. He also qualified for the Race of Champions in the Super Stocks but dropped out early.

On Saturday, he battled for thirty laps with Isanti Minnesota's Dave Mass for the Super Stock title before falling a car length short and settling for second place which paid $3,000. He will continue to battle with Johnson in the coming weeks as Myers looks for his second straight WISSOTA national Super Stock title.

Myers also had his Midwest Modified in South Dakota but failed to qualify for the main event with that car after a series of bad luck incidents.

Halopka qualified sixth on Thursday in his Midwest Modified qualifying feature for Saturday. He also entered the Race of Champions event, having qualified for that event at the Rice Lake Speedway. However, a broken suspension part caused him to drop out of that race early.

In Saturday night's main event, he put on one of the best charges of the evening as he starting eighteenth in the twenty five lap Midwest Modified feature and raced all the way up to sixth at the finish.

Kolby Kiehl was a first time participant in the WISSOTA 100 and he got faster each time he got on the big half mile, qualifying on Thursday night for the Saturday feature race. He started twenty first on Saturday and raced all the way up to eighth at the end, being one of the highest placing rookie racers of the weekend.

Fankhauser qualified by finishing sixth in the opening night Street Stock main event and then sat back and waited for Saturday night's finale. He also had a top ten finish, starting sixteenth and finishing tenth in the big, seventy plus car field of Street Stocks.

Kummer was the point champion at Rice Lake in 2016 and he wowed the crowd on Wednesday, charging from twenty first to finish fourth in his qualifying feature. He too, was entered in the Race of Champions but a broken front end part saw him drop out early. After starting tenth in Saturday night's finale, he again was forced to drop out early with front end damage, finishing twenty eighth in the field.

Saturday night's feature events were contested before a standing room only crowd at the Dakota State Fair Speedway with over 8,000 fans estimated to be in attendance.

Local racers will continue to chase points for the next several weekends as upcoming events include races in Memononie, Ashland, Ogilvie Minnesota and Sauk Rapids Minnesota before the racing season ends and the banquets begin.