[Sandy Lowe]

Callie Wolsiffer Closes Out the 2015 MTQRL Season with a Win at Shelbyville

Callie Wolsiffer capped off a dream season on Saturday night at the Shelby County Fairgrounds in Shelbyville, Ind. when she scored her first three-quarter midget feature win with the Midwest TQ Racing League presented by Jenmarco.com.

Wolsiffer, a 20-year old rookie from New Palestine, Ind., had nine top-five feature finishes in eleven starts, including a trio of runner-up finishes, and never finished outside the top-ten. She won five of twelve Perfect North Slopes heat races, a Jackson Oil & Solvents Duel for Fuel, finished second in the season standings and was the 2015 Tony Stewart Racing Rookie of the Year.





Will Nedderman started the 25-lap feature on the pole and led the field to the green flag. Nedderman looked to be in control until lap five when he spun in turn two. Nedderman’s misfortune handed the lead to fellow front row starter Logan Arnold who held the point on the restart over Nick Speidel, Wolsiffer, defending MTQRL champion Cody Kiewitt and Ronnie Combs.

On the ninth lap, the caution would waive for debris in turn two setting up an unfortunate series of events. After the field was given the furled flag signaling green flag next time by, and the race leaders entered turn three anticipating the green flag, an official entered the racing surface in turn two to retrieve additional debris. With an official in the middle of the racing surface, a decision was made to abort the start.

Due to the location of the official the yellow flag was waived and a caution was called as the race leaders accelerated out of turn four. The normal procedure for aborting a start is to waive a lazy green and then call for a caution period when the field is on the backstretch. With the number one concern being the safety of the person in turn two, this was not possible and the caution period commenced immediately.

With cars accelerating and then slowing Combs narrowly avoided running over Kiewitt on the inside of the front stretch. As cars went high they began to stack up with Bobby Walton getting turned sideways and flipping. After exiting the car Walton was attended to by medical personnel and taken in the ambulance to the pit area for observation.

When racing resumed Arnold continued to hold the point over Speidel & Wolsiffer. The caution would waive on lap eleven for a Chris Mann spin in turn four, on lap seventeen when Rick Robinson and Nedderman spun in turn four, and again on lap twenty-two when Dan Newell spun in turn two.

Arnold continued to lead the field on all restarts and was able to pull away from Speidel after a lap or two of green flag racing. Speidel continued to lead Wolsiffer with Combs passing Kiewitt for fourth place on lap fourteen.

As the leaders entered turns one and two on the penultimate lap Speidel made contact with Arnold. Arnold slid to a stop off the racing surface bringing out the final caution period of the race. Speidel, who was on probation due to previous instances of rough driving - including an incident with Arnold in June, was subsequently disqualified.

With the field circling the track under caution Speidel refused to leave the racing surface. The race was red flagged and Speidel was removed from the front stretch and excluded from the racing event.

The race was restarted and Wolsiffer led the final two laps in the #14T Tony Stewart Racing / Acro Racing / Adams Engines / Tony Stewart Foundation / Asher Pallets / Jen Mascaro / Slinkard Racing Kawasaki powered Beast. Ronnie Combs trailed his teammate to the checkers followed by Cody Kiewitt, Aaron Percell and Brayton Leisure. Chris Mann, Rob Walton, Kevin Blue, Dan Newell and Joey Paxson completed the top ten.

Chris Mann was the Steed Motorsports Hard Charger improving twelve positions, Bobby Walton the Duane & Sonja Alexander Hard Luck Driver, and Callie Wolsiffer was the Tony Stewart Racing Rookie of the Race.

In a very competitive qualifying session that saw the top five separated by less than 2/10th of a second, Nick Speidel set quick time after laying down a lap of 17.642 seconds, just 0.016 seconds faster that Brett Hankins.

With the setting sun causing problems for drivers to see entering turn one, the program was halted for approximately 15 minutes to allow the sun to sink below the horizon. When racing resumed Nick Speidel won the Jackson Oil & Solvents Duel for Fuel, Qualifying Race winners were Dennis Atchley and Rick Robinson, and Perfect North Slopes heat winners were Speidel, Callie Wolsiffer and Aaron Percell.

The 2015 MTQRL championship was decided when Ronnie Combs signed in for the evening. Combs led the league with five feature wins, was the Tony Stewart Foundation Leader of the Pack after leading 91 of 245 feature laps, the MTQRL Quick Time Champion after posting the fastest cumulative qualifying time, and the Steed Motorsports Hard Charger after passing 31 cars in eleven races even though his average starting position in the feature was a 5.18.

In addition to being named the Tony Stewart Racing Rookie of the Year Callie Wolsiffer led the league in heat race wins and was the Perfect North Slopes Heat Race Champion.

Rick Robinson won four of eight Duel for Fuels and was the Jackson Oil & Solvents Duel for Fuel Champion. Additional awards including the Duane & Sonja Alexander Hard Luck Award, MTQRL Spirit Award, and the SSG Jeremy W. Doyle Most Improved Driver Award will be presented at the annual awards banquet.

The Midwest TQ Racing League would like to thank the car owners, drivers, officials, promoters, sponsors, photographers and fans for their support during the 2015 race season.

For more information on the MTQRL please Like Us on Facebook at “Midwest TQ Racing League” or visit our website www.mtqrl.com.




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[speidel21]

Made contact? Get your story straight

[dirtnonwingfan]

Congratulations Callie! Way to close out a successful season.

[Rhewitt]

Yes stopping them for the sun was a good and smart move that was the only smart move of the night and no raceing club is perfect but when u have an official that is not smart enough to get the trash off the track the first time he waited till they held up the perl flag when the last car goes by turn 2 he decided to go back met on the track after they said over the radio we r going green so the first few cars came out of turn 4 with the green flag out standing on the gas pedal then they throw the yellow flag and then they had a pile up and trashed a car disqualified a car wich from the grand stands lookf like a clean pass and then the guy pullf over and stopped and got out of his car ame walked up on the track and of course the same corner worker that made the call to disqualify the other driver didn't c the driver walk onto track u thought something would of been done bout that but I guess not the raceing was great just takes them to long to get the show going and if a car spins it take forever to get them pushed off they have one maybe two officials that need replaced

[Kenneth.Howard13]

I thought rubbing was racing. I remember similar instances happening in the UMRA an u seen what happend. If you can't take getting rubbed a little bit with the big boys then keep your car in the garage. Sounds like they got it out for certain drivers. As far as the debris caution people make mistakes. Unfortunately that mistake cost some racers some money but that's when the officials need to go back during the off season an discuss there procedures.

[TqMidget41&84]

Kenneth, how many times have you been taken out while leading a race?I'm not talking a bumper tap to be moved out of the way. I have a feeling you'd feel different if you were in their shoes.

[racerjim2]

That Speidel guy sounds like a real bad ass racer. He passes cars.

[Slider20]

Yeah as someone who doesn't follow the TQ scene, it definitely sounds like they have it out for him.

[Kenneth.Howard13]

I have raced against Nick and I think he's a great driver. Me personally I have only seen one instance were he went in a little to hot and side slammed someone at north vernon. I have never seen him go out and try to tear someones equipment up on purpose. A lot of people who go to shelbyvilles track knows that its not well lit and it gets really dusty there. The MTQRL i think just needs to do a better job on getting the shows going in a timely manner. The holding up the dash was a good idea because of the sun. I think more push off's are needed for sure.

[TqMidget41&84]

Yeah if you weren't at the track and actually see all this go down its pretty easy to believe what you read. But there are two sides to each story, just very ironic the same driver has been part of the same "story" 3 years in a row.