By: Kevin Ramsell
Friday, October 05, 2007 (West Salem, WI) – A record crowd, for a Friday night of Oktoberfest, was on hand to witness the inaugural running of the “Dick Trickle 99.” In the end it was a hometown hero eating the cheese in victory lane in this unique three 33-lap segment race as it came down to Steve Holzhausen beating Dan Fredrickson for the win.
Fredrickson and Holzhausen put on a great battle while working their way through lap traffic in the first 33-lap segment. Holzhausen jumped out to the early lead in at the green flag with with Fredrickson following right behind him.
The caution flew on lap 4 when it appeared that Mark Eswein got into the grass in turns three and four and got loose causing him to go up and tap Trickle. Trickle spun coming off of turn four and would be able to continue.
On lap 24, Fredrickson took advantage of Holzhausen trying to work his way around lap traffic as he went on the outside of Holzhausen going into turn three to take over the top spot. Four laps later, while still in lap traffic, Holzhausen would get past Fredrickson but the two would swap spots again a lap later.
After a caution on lap 30 for Chris Weinkauf’s and Trent Snyder’s spin in turn one, Fredrickson would go on to hold off Holzhausen to win the first segment by half a car length.
The biggest mover in the first segment was Jeremy Lepak, who got a provisional. He moved from 25th to finish 11th. Lepak would finish third in the second segment and would have a cut rear tire to take him out of the third.
A total of 18 cars were on the lead lap at the end of the first segment causing an 18 car invert for the second segment with Weinkauf on the pole and Snyder on the outside of row one.
In the second segment, Kevin Nuttleman moved from his fourth starting position to get by early leader Trent Snyder on lap 12 to win the second segment.
First segment winner, Fredrickson, marched from his 18th starting position to finish fourth with Holzhausen right behind him in fifth.
The top five after two segments had Fredrickson with four points, Holzhausen with seven points, Lepak & Carlson with 14 points each, and Nuttleman, Andy Hanson, and Blake Horstman with 16 points.
Nuttleman helped set the invert by spinning a five on the wheel. With five plus the number eight, the invert for the final segment was 13. This will have Mark Eswein and Tim Schendel on the front row.
Holzhausen was on a mission in the final segment. He needed to finish at least two places ahead of Fredrickson to win.
Up front, Steve Carlson showed the fans why he is the 2007 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series National Champion as he got past Eswein for the lead on lap 3.
Both Holzhausen and Fredrickson shared row five as the green flag flew and Holzhausen took off with Fredrickson in tow. On lap 12, Holzhausen got the space he needed as he moved into fifth while Fredrickson was up to seventh battling a loose race car.
By the halfway mark, Holzhausen worked his way to second while Fredrickson was stuck back on sixth.
In the final ten laps, Fredrickson was able to work his way to fourth to at least tie Holzhausen in the overall points.
While this was going on, Carlson was out on a Friday night cruise to win the final segment with Holzhausen closing in. Blake Horstman had a great last lap duel with Eswein where the two made contact in turns three and four allowing Fredrickson to sneak into the fourth position.
Both Holzhausen and Fredrickson ended up with nine points at the end. The tie-breaker was the finishing position in final segment, which Holzhausen was declared the overall winner.
“We gave her everything we had in every race,” an exhausted Holzhausen stated in victory lane. “I was watching the (scoring) tree and saw he got into fifth, but I didn’t know where we were in the points.”
“It was fun as it could be,” Fredrickson stated after the race. “We won the first one, not real good in the second one, but Steve and I were so much better than everyone else that I didn’t want to over adjust, but in the third one I missed it more than he did.”
Overall it was Holzhausen with the win with Fredrickson in second with nine points each. Carlson was third with 15 points and Horstman in fourth with 19 points. Eswein was fifth with 24 points.
There were four 15-lap qualifying races with the top-two in each advancing to the main event. Scott Ollerman and Andy Hanson advanced from the first with Chris Weinkauf and Trevor Stewart advancing from the second. Jason Weinkauf did finish second in the first qualifier but he failed post-race inspection.
Jeff Storm and Chris Skrede added their names to the starting line-up by finishing first and second in the third qualifying race. Donny Reuvers and Tim Rothe were the final two to earn a starting spot in the feature event with their first and second place finishes in the final qualifier.
Earlier in the day, Holzhausen was the fastest of the 78 cars in attendance with a lap time of 19.172 seconds. It is believed that this was the largest field for a late model race in the United States this year.
Overall, Oktoberfest promoter, John McKarns was pleased with the first running of the “Dick Trickle 99.” “We had a record crowd here for a Friday night of over 5,000 people. We’re tickled with that we had 99 laps with only two yellows and no cars towed off. A great winner, a hometown favorite and I think we will be doing it next year,” McKarns stated.
And for the man who the race was named after? “I think it’s a great race,” Trickle exclaimed. “I think the crowd enjoyed it so did the drivers. I got in a little incident in the first race that messed my car up that I didn’t run well all night. My guys had a good car for me, we were quite competitive.”
38TH ANNUAL OKTOBERFEST WEEKEND – “DICK TRICKLE 99”
RESULTS
Pos # Driver Race #1 Race #2 Race #3 Total
1 97 Steve Holzhausen 2 + 5 + 2 = 9
2 36 Dan Fredrickson 1 + 4 + 4 = 9
3 66 Steve Carlson 3 + 11 + 1 = 15
4 75 Blake Horstman 9 + 7 + 3 = 19
5 71 Mark Eswein 6 + 13 + 5 = 24
6 4 Kevin Nuttleman 15 + 1 + 8 = 24
7 21 Tim Schendel 7 + 12 + 6 = 25
8 87 Nathan Haseleu 8 + 10 + 7 = 25
9 8 Andy Hanson 14 + 2 + 15 = 31
10 72 Jacob Goede 13 + 9 + 11 = 33
11 9 Dean Cornelius 5 + 19 + 10 = 34
12 40 Jeremy Lepak 11 + 3 + 24 = 38
13 75 Chris Weinkauf 18 + 8 + 13 = 39
14 00 Jeff Kendall 10 + 15 + 14 = 39
15 11 Josh Vadnais 4 + 14 + 21 = 39
16 7 Don Turner 12 + 16 + 16 = 44
17 88 Trent Snyder 17 + 6 + 22 = 45
18 99 Dick Trickle 19 + 18 + 17 = 54
19 7s Jeff Storm 22 + 20 + 18 = 60
20 76 Jason Weinkauf 26 + 26 + 9 = 61
21 40 Nick Hammer 26 + 17 + 20 = 63
22 98 Molly Rhoads 26 + 26 + 12 = 64
23 73 Chris Skrede 25 + 21 + 19 = 65
24 41 Donny Reuvers 16 + 24 + 26 = 66
25 14 Eugene Gregorich Jr. 20 + 23 + 26 = 69
26 56 Tim Rothe 24 + 22 + 26 = 72
27 91 Trevor Stewart 23 + 25 + 25 = 73
28 0 Scott Ollerman 21 + 26 + 26 = 73
Segment 1 — 1, Dan Fredrickson; 2, Steve Holzhausen; 3, Steve Carlson; 4, Josh Vadnais; 5, Dean Cornelius.
Segment 2 — 1, Kevin Nuttleman; 2, Jacob Goede; 3, Jeremy Lapak; 4, Dan Fredrickson; 5, Steve Holzhausen.
Segment 3 — 1, Steve Carlson; 2, Steve Holzhausen; 3, Blake Horstman; 4, Dan Fredrickson; 5, Mark Eswein.
B-Feature 1 — 1, Scott Ollerman; 2, Andy Hanson; 3, Todd Stapleman, Plainfield; 4, Jason Schnieder, New Market, Minn.
B-Feature 2 — 1, Chris Weinkauf; 2, Trevor Stewart; 3, Dan Lensing, Poplar Grove, Ill.; 4, Nick Panitzke, Saul Center, Minn.; 5,
B-Feature 3 — 1, Jeff Storm; 2, Chris Skrede; 3, Molly Rhoads; 4, Kyle Calmes, Appleton; 5, Chris Wimmer, Wausau.
B-Feature 4 — 1, Donny Reuvers; 2, Tim Rothie; 3, Nick Hammer, Sun Praire; 4, Steve Rubeck, Monroe Center, Ill; 5, Brian Johnson, Machesney Park, Ill.
Qualifying — 1, Steve Holzhausen, 19.172 secs, 102.415 MPH; 2, Blake Horstman, 19.239 secs, 102.058 MPH; 3, Dan Fredrickson, 19.268 secs, 101.905 MPH; 4, Nathan Haseleu, 19.293 secs, 101.773 MPH; 5, Eugene Gregorich Jr., 19.297 secs, 101.752 MPH.