Visser wins first feature in four years

Beautiful weather meant another week of flag-to-flag racing action at the Emo Speedway on Saturday night.
Sunny skies during the week helped track workers bring the facility back into shape after a wet week before.

The track turned out to be pretty good, with at least a couple of grooves to run on. The weather also brought out an excellent crowd of cars and fans.
In the WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds, another large turnout of cars entered the pits. Nineteen of them, including new driver Paul Veert from Winnipeg, began the night in three heats.
A regular in the WISSOTA Super Stock class at the Red River Co-op Speedway, Veert decided to also run in the WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds at River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks, Mn. and in Emo this season.
He already has one win at River Cities, and the feature at Emo this past Saturday almost gave him a second victory.
In the first heat, Tridell Champlin took the win over Dwayne Pihulak and Matt DePiero while Anthony Visser grabbed the lead over Bill Reimer and John Hettinga in the second one.
The third heat saw Kendal Gamsby outpace Chuck Lambert and Veert.
All the cars were able to start the feature but in turn one on the first lap, a driver just before mid-pack lost control and caused some cars to stack up.
After a complete restart, the race went steady for about 12 laps with Veert taking a dominate lead and lapping slower cars.
But it was not meant to be as a caution came out and the field was able to pull back up to Veert.
There were three more quick cautions and in one of them, Veert was lightly hit and lost his right shock. He faded quickly and Anthony Visser took the point.
But it was not going to be an easy win as Tridell Champlin pulled up beside.
In turns one and two, Visser would out pull Champlin, but in three and four, Champlin was able to get beside him. Each of them took advantage of mistakes by the other.
The lead changed two or three times, but Champlin was unable to get by—giving Visser his first points feature win in more than four years.
It was a well-fought battle, with Visser becoming the fifth different driver to win this season in the WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds.
Veert would finish eighth after a solid run throughout much of the night.
Champlin, however, reclaimed top spot in the points standings, three ahead of Lambert and Gamsby. Brady Caul still has a shot, being nine points back, with Pihulak rounding out the top five at 14 points behind the leader.
In the WISSOTA Modifieds division, Chad Jonson of International Falls, Mn. made his first trip to Emo of the season as a birthday wish to his son. It was a great sight to see Jonson back on the local track.
And it proved a worthy cause as Jonson would win the first heat over Glen Strachan and Bill Witherspoon.
In the second heat, Greg Ferris continued his domination, coming from third to beat Pihulak and Ron Korpi.
The feature race was good, especially during the first half between Korpi and Witherspoon. Korpi played the restarts well and held the lead for the first half of the event.
About halfway through, Jonson broke something in his suspension and spun out, causing a pile-up between Derrick Big Eagle, Caul, and Glen Strachan.
Strachan went into the changing area to check damage and came back out in time.
After clean-up crews finished with the mess, Ferris and Korpi raced hard. But Korpi was unable to hold back Ferris for the lead.
Strachan was starting to come on, but his nose tin bent up—causing him to partially lose sight. He continued to race but with limited vision, so he had to play a careful game.
It paid off, though, as he finished in second place. No one was a match for Ferris, who won by half-a-track.
Witherspoon and Korpi had the best battle for third spot. Lots of side-by-side racing took place, but it was Witherspoon who would win the war for third.
Ferris now has won four of the five races this season, and has taken a commanding lead in the points standings.
The Street Stocks, meanwhile, were five laps short of having a rookie winner.
Local driver Daniel Hettinga was able to start on the front row for the feature race because of his point average ahead of the hard-charging Scott Messner.
The fans and Hettinga knew it was going to be a tough race—and the action was very good. Messner dealt with the five cars ahead of him in quick succession and took an outside line beside Hettinga. But Hettinga pulled away coming out of two and Messner could not gain any distance on the backstretch.
But the car of Trudy Shine was being caught up by the leaders and she happened to be in the same line as Hettinga. As both Messner and Hettinga approached Shine, Hettinga had to move high to get around.
It proved futile as he spun out on the slick side of the track, costing him the win.
Messner moved around a sprawling Hettinga and finished off the last few laps to win his fourth race of the year.
Tylar Wilson won the only Street Stocks heat of the night over Hettinga and Jeff Wickstrom.
This Saturday at the Emo Speedway, the Township of Emo is sponsoring fireworks and free cake as a Canada Day prelude.
Hot laps begin at 7 p.m., with racing at 7:30 (weather permitting).
Check out all the latest at www.borderlandracing.com
Summary
WISSOTA
Modifieds
•Feature—1. Greg Ferris 2. Glen Strachan 3. Bill Witherspoon 4. Ron Korpi 5. Dwayne Pihulak 6. Gary Wilson 7. Rob Anderson 8. Derrick Big Eagle 9. Brady Caul 10. Chad Jonson
•Heat #1–1. Jonson 2. Strachan 3. Witherspoon 4. Anderson 5. Reimer 6. R. Anderson
•Heat #2—1. Ferris 2. Pihulak 3. Korpi 4. Caul 5. Wilson 6. Big Eagle
WISSOTA
Midwest Modifieds
•Feature—1. Anthony Visser 2. Tridell Champlin 3. Chuck Lambert 4. Kendal Gamsby 5. Mike Wilson 6. Ken Anderson 7. Terry Martin 8. Paul Veert 9. Brady Caul 10. Christopher Leek 11. Jeff Davis 12. Dwayne Pihulak 13. Steve Nordin 14. Bill Reimer 15. Matthew Mutz 16. John Hettinga 17. Matt DePiero 18. Rick Bourre 19. Andrew Trimble
•Heat #1–1. Champlin 2. Pihulak 3. DePiero 4. Martin 5. Bourre 6. Mutz 7. Wilson
•Heat #2–1. Visser 2. Reimer 3. Hettinga 4. Leek 5. Nordin 6. Trimble
•Heat #3–1. Gamsby 2. Lambert 3. Veert 4. Davis 5. Caul 6. Anderson
Street Stocks
•Feature–1. Scott Messner 2. Tylar Wilson 3. Daniel Hettinga 4. Chris Shine 5. Richard Visser 6. Trudy Shine 7. Lindsay Bourre
•Heat–1. Wilson 2. Hettinga 3. Wickstrom 4. Messner 5. Visser 6. Shine 7. T. Shine 8. Bourre 9. T. Wickstrom