Jamestown Speedway was yet again hampered by rain on Saturday night, upping Mother Nature's batting average against the track this season to a whopping .750.
The speedway has attempted to host eight shows so far this summer, and all but two of those scheduled events were at the very least sprinkled on at some point in the evening.
The clouds began on Saturday with a couple of soft, left-handed jabs at approximately 7:25 p.m. as the last heat of Bombers came off the track. But it was the right-handed haymaker that landed at just after 8 p.m. as the WISSOTA Modified heat races wrapped up that washed out the evening for good.
Speedway officials attempted to try and wait out the weather, working the surface of the track the best they could, but after an hour the elements were declared the winner and fans were sent home at roughly 9:15 p.m.
All of the Bomber, Modified, Midwest Modified and Street Stock heat races were completed, along with what proved to be an entertaining Hornets feature on a wet and heavy track that wrapped up the evening. Bismarck's Chase Chlafmann was the winner.
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The main feature races were rained out for the third time this season. Jamestown Speedway officials have not yet decided when the make-up date for those feature races will be held.
Last week the speedway was busy playing catch up, running the rained out feature races from May 22 and June 5 along with a Bomber Special.
Jamestown's Ryan Mikkelson and Carrington's Chris Gussiaas went 2-for-2 at the track that night, with Mikkelson winning the two Midwest Modified features and Gussiaas winning the Bomber Special and the make-up feature from June 5.
Mikkelson also recorded the fastest lap time of all the classes of cars that evening, scored via Jamestown Speedway's newly installed transponder scoring system. Mikkelson turned a lap of 15.878 seconds in his No. 15 Midwest Mod, amounting to an average speed of 56.682 mph.
Mikkelson's machine was obviously hooked up well last weekend, as the fastest A-Mod time was recorded by Blake Jegtvig, of Hawley, Minn., in 16.049 seconds (56.078 mph average speed). Mikkelson's B-Mod gives up roughly 200 horsepower to Jegtvig's more powerful A-Mod.
"The transponder system counts the cars in order as they cross the start/finish line, and also shows their speed," Jamestown Speedway marketing manager and scorer Teri Searle said. "The classes using it right now include the Streets, Midwest Modifieds and Modifieds. The Bombers will be using it next year."
Each driver at the track, except in the Bomber class, has a transponder mounted inside his or her race car, and a scoring loop buried underneath the track at the start/finish line reads the driver's transponder numbers as they cross the line. The number is then relayed to a computer being viewed by the official scorers.
"Every time a driver crosses the line their transponder number shows, through a decoder, on the computer screen and shows their lap time, speed and running order," Searle said. "After the event is over the drivers can log on to Mylaps.com and see the finishing order and their speeds, lap-by-lap, in comparison to the other drivers."
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Anyone can log on to Mylaps.com and see the speeds that are currently being set at the track.
Searle said the new scoring system, which was in its second time being used at the track on Saturday, doesn't eliminate good old manual counting, but it does a good job of limiting human error.
"The drivers like it because it takes away any favoritism or close calls. The running order is right there," Searle said. "We still have to manually count incase the computer goes down or someone doesn't have a transponder, but it's going pretty good.
"The system is used by other sports, including motorcycles, snowmobiles, boats, bicycles and trucks."
Mikkelson was once again the fastest Midwest Mod at the track on Saturday. The Jamestown native won his heat and turned a lap of 15.846 seconds (56.797 mph).
But Jason Strand, of Portland, N.D., turned the fastest lap of the night in his Modified. Strand laid down a lap of 14.839 seconds (60.651 mph) while also winning his heat.
In the Street Stocks, Jamestown's Dustin Erickson ran the fastest lap of the night in 17.060 seconds (52.524 mph). Erickson finished his heat in sixth place.
Jamestown Speedway's annual Fireworks Spectacular is slated for next Saturday night.
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Jamestown Speedway
Results
June 26
Bombers
Heat 1: 1, Brandon Gussiaas; 2, Mike Sahr; 3, Leann Christensen; 4, Donnie Martin; 5, Clay Houchin; 6, Jamie Moulsoff; 7, Dusty Hinrichs.
Heat 2: 1, Shawn Becker; 2, Tyler Michel; 3, Lucas Rodin; 4, Joe Jacobson; 5, Jeff Vogel; 6, Chris Gussiaas; 7, Jason Thoms.
Heat 3: 1, Bryan Wolf; 2, Josh Ganser; 3, Ryan Widmer; 4, Corey Jacobson; 5, Devin Christ; 6, Jonny Carter; 7, Randy Gordon.
WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds
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Heat 1: 1, Dale Johnson; 2, Jayson Corell; 3, Travis Aljets; 4, Ryan Lehr; 5, Dave Peterson; 6, Tyler Schrenk; 7, Steve Ost. DNF: Nate Jenrich.
Heat 2: 1, Ryan Mikkelson; 2, Lance Schill; 3, Landon Becker; 4, Josh Eberhardt; 5, Shawn Nostdahl; 6, Jarrett Carter; 7, Alex Well. DNF: Jim Morlock.
Heat 3: 1, Scott Bintz; 2, Josh Skorczewski; 3, Jerry Theis; 4, Eric Edwards; 5, Kyle Knouse; 6, Mike Nims; 7, Darin Smith.
WISSOTA Street Stocks
Heat 1: 1, Geoff Hellman; 2, Kelly Hagel; 3, Royce Jawaski; 4, Casey Stangeland; 5, Barrett Berg; 6, Dustin Erickson; 7, Jordan Zillmer; 8, Cole Searing; 9, Jay Sahr.
Heat 2: 1, Rusty Kollman; 2, Jake Emo; 3, Rory Opp; 4, Bob Banish, Jr.; 5, Ryan Pommerer; 6, Billie Christ; 7, Cammy Ost; 8, Randy Kollman; 9, Tom Bjerke.
Heat 3: 1, Brian Swenson; 2, John Feist; 3, Darren Pfau; 4, Luke Nelson; 5, Justin Kollman; 6, Troy Nelson; 7, Paul Kirkeide; 8, Bryce Kuska.
WISSOTA Modifieds
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Heat 1: 1, Bob Sagen; 2, Randy Klein; 3, Mike Stearns; 4, Mark Trautner; 5, Eric Edwards.
Heat 2: 1, Jason Strand; 2, Ross Romdalvik; 3, John Nord; 4, Corey Seckerson; 5, Blake Jegtvig; 6, Travis Cantwell.
Heat 3: 1, Kent Arment; 2, Jerry Lamb; 3, Randy Tarno; 4, John Corell; 5, Dwight Wegner. DNF: Ryan Fike.
Hornets
Feature: 1, Chase Chlafmann; 2, Wayne Guthmiller; 3, Meryl Stoppleworth; 4, David Freeman; 5, Steven Nicholson; 6, Zach Dockter; 7, Dustin Kosir; 8, Jeremy Towe; 9, Brandon Michel.
Sun sports writer Michael Savaloja can be reached (701) 952-8461 or by email at mikes@jamestownsun.com
