9/5/2021
IRA Interstate Racing Association
Gass Wins Sheboygan County Fair Race
Labor Day weekend signals the end of summer, and traditionally a three day weekend for the Bumper to Bumper Outlaw Sprint Series. The first night of which, scheduled for Friday at the Dodge County Fairgrounds, was rained out, leaving the Plymouth Dirt Track on Saturday and 141 Speedway on Sunday.
Saturday's race at the Plymouth Dirt Track saw a packed house as part of the Sheboygan County Fair. 31 410 sprint cars signed in for action at the quarter mile track with the backdrop of carnival rides and the scent of fried food.
As the night progressed, Scotty Thiel had to be the favorite to win the feature. Thiel was looking at a sweep of the night as he had claimed fast time honors, a heat win and won dash number 2 en route to a front row starting spot. Mike Reinke, Danny Schlafer and Steve Meyer all also claimed heat race wins. Blake Nimee was victorious in dash 1 to earn the pole position and leading rookie of the year contender Kyle Schuett won the B main.
As the A main went green, it was not Thiel tho who took the lead, it was Blake Nimee. Nimee held the lead, by the slimmest of margins over Scotty Thiel, who has been plagued with bad luck at the track he cut his teeth racing sprint cars around. Just past the halfway point of the feature, Thiel was able to maneuver his 73 machine past Nimee and into the lead. Nimee would not surrender though, keeping pressure on Thiel and regaining the lead on lap 20, only to once again lose it to Thiel one lap later. It looked as though Scotty Thiel had finally turned things around at the exciting quarter mile, but with just a couple laps left, things would change.
18 year old Noah Gass in his first career start with the IRA sprint cars had qualified 5th and ran 2nd in his heat race. In the dash he fell back to 4th and as such started the A main in 7th. The Mounds Oklahoma native had steadily picked his way past cars, and with 6 laps to go he found himself in the 2nd position. Gass was able to real Thiel in and drove around him on the high side of turn 4. As the pair raced down the front straight away and into turn 1 they both attempted to use the bottom and ran out of racing room, causing Thiel to loop his Oz Motorsports car around and bring out the caution. Noah Gass would be relatively unchallenged on the restart and lead the last 2 laps claiming the victory. Gass’ victory marks his first win in as many starts with the Bumper to Bumper IRA sprint series and 2nd of the weekend as he also won Friday night at Illinois' Jacksonville Speedway.
The Action continues Sunday night at 141 Speedway in Francis Creek, Wisconsin. Can Noah Gass keep his 100% win percentage or will Robbie Pribnow repeat his performance from earlier this year? If you can’t make it out, tune into Flo Racing to catch every lap of the action.
Article Credit: Gared Tennyson
Submitted By: Kim Tennyson