[Task Force]

TEER PROVIDES HONDA FIRST EVER WIN IN ILLINI RACING SERIES
By Zach Tasker
In the 23 year history of the Illini Racing Series, a Honda powered car had never won a feature race, that all changed Saturday June 14 at Sycamore Speedway in northern Illinois when Freddie Teer Jr won an exciting event in front of a packed house. 17 midgets were on hand at the ½ mile dirt oval, the 20 lap feature started with Mike Adams Jr, who was making his return to midget racing after relocating to Atlanta, Georgia and Eddie Sauer starting on the front row.
Teer quickly worked his way to the point from his 3rd place starting position. Meanwhile, heat race number 2 winner Danny Drogemuller was working his way to the front from his 9th place starting position, and he was doing it in spectacular fashion using the extreme high line which many brave drivers don’t even dare to try at Sycamore. The Frankfort native was riding the cushion and passing cars in a hurry. He would take the lead from Teer just a few laps into the race and build up a large margin just as he did in his heat race. However a yellow flag with 10 laps to go for Eddie Sauers spin on the front straight bunched the field up. Teer used this to his advantage and started to try to find a way around the #76 of Drogemuller.
What transpired the next ten laps looked fitting for a sprint car race at Kokomo, Teer down low and Drogemuller up high lap after lap would trade the lead like two heavyweight fighters trading blows. Both gave each other plenty of room but still raced each other hard. What was just as impressive was the fact that while racing side by side they were still able to put a little bit of a gap on the rest of the field. With just a couple of laps remaining Teer rolled around the bottom of the corner in turns 1 and 2 like magic and took the lead for good.
This victory was a long time in the making for the driver of the #54 Hoffie Nursery/Kendall County Concrete Stealth/Honda , who has been shut out from victory lane in recent years “It feels really good, it’s been so long. We have been trying to get this Honda running and tonight it came through so it feels great. My Dad, Dale, Wayne, Shawn, Jason Allen, they have all been working on my car really hard and they don’t get enough credit. My dad is always really intense in racing and I kind of have given up until tonight and I have been looking for my second wind and tonight might be my start of that I hope.”
For Drogemuller, 2nd place was a bitter pill to swallow after dominating the first half of the race “I don’t know what happened, I got out front and I knew I had a lead but I didn’t know how much of a lead and I seen 54 and 54 (on the scoreboard) and I really didn’t think much of it. I thought I was a lot faster than them and then the yellows came out and I knew they were on my tail and nobody really challenged me until the end and they snuck up on me and the car didn’t handle like I needed it too, it was too loose and I had a lot of rear brake in the car so it seemed like I couldn’t get the car straight enough to get traction to go get them so I think the top slowed down or the bottom got faster.”
The driver of the #76 National Animal Welfare Society Spike/Ecotec still had a great time racing side by side for the lead with Teer “That’s how I like to race; I don’t like the bumping and block the race track and that kind of stuff. I probably could have gone down there a couple times and took his line away and we probably would have both ended up in the trailer. Me and Freddie go way back; there is probably not a person at this race track right now that I would have rather done that with than him.”
Even though the battle for the win was what everybody was watching, the battle for 3rd place was just as intense. Patrick Bruns and Jason Allen battled multiple laps trading position until Bruns eventually wrestled it away from Allen. The driver of the #10b Darcy GMC/Mobil 1/Triple T Car Wash & Lube/MWR Lightning/Ecotec was already involved earlier in the night in a wild 1st heat race in which he was leading until he spun and got hit by Kurt Mayhew and then Allen. Mayhew would recover to win the heat race with a last lap pass on Aaron Schuck with Bruns in 2nd “Congratulations to Fred Teer, great win for those guys. I know he has said multiple times he is ready to retire but he just proved he’s not really ready to retire. He did a heck of a job tonight. I had (Jason Allen) passed a couple times here and finally got a good clean run away from him and it’s always fun to run and race competitively but we need to just race everybody clean and have a good time and have everybody finish at the end of the night and respect one another on the race track. The Illini Racing Series has gained a lot of notoriety these past few years for having a fairly even set of rules and a strong governing body and there are a lot of people looking towards the series right now and the series officials need to practice integrity and respect with enforcing the rules and make them fair for one another to continue to grow this series.”
The IRS now heads back to pavement with the next race occurring this Saturday June 21 at Rockford Speedway. Aaron Willis Jr won an attrition filled race the last time the Illini Midgets visited the high banks in May, Will he prevail again or will Teer make it two wins in a row after a long time away from victory lane? Racing starts at 7:07pm.

UNOFFICIAL RESULTS:
FEATURE (20 LAPS): 1)#54 Freddie Teer Jr. 2)#76 Danny Drogemuller 3)#10b Patrick Bruns 4)#54a Jason Allen 5)#21 Kurt Mayhew 6)#15 Mike Anderson 7)#9d Brian Dobis 8)#53 Aaron Schuck 9)#6 Dan smith 10)#9s Mike Stroik 11)#3 Eddie Sauer 12)#10c Jimmy Clark Jr 13)#21a Mike Adams Jr. 14)#55 Scott Koerner 15)#0 Doug Orseske 16)#2a Andrew Hennig (DNS) 17)#43 Buddy Luebke (DNS)

HEAT RACE #1 (8 LAPS): 1)#21 Kurt Mayhew 2)#10b Patrick Bruns 3)#53 Aaron Schuck 4)#54a Jason Allen 5)#3 Eddie Sauer 6)#15 Mike Anderson 7)#9s Mike Stroik 8)#43 Buddy Luebke 9)#55 Scott Koerner

HEAT RACE #2 (8 LAPS): 1)#76 Danny Drogemuller 2)#10c Jimmy Clark Jr. 3)#9d Brian Dobis 4)#54 Freddie Teer Jr. 5)#2a Andrew Hennig 6)#6 Dan Smith 7)#0 Doug Orseske 8)#21a Mike Adams Jr