Anderson masters Grundy County once again
By Zach Tasker
Mike Anderson once again found his way to Grundy County Speedway victory lane this past Saturday night. The Illini Racing Series midgets visited the 1/3 mile paved oval in Morris, Illinois for the first of seven times in 2014 this past Saturday night. The 25 lap feature saw the night’s second heat race winner Brian Dobis and Danny Drogemuller lead the 13 car field to the green flag. Defending series champion Patrick Bruns quickly worked his way to the front taking the lead on lap 5. Heat race 1 winner and Mike Wallace Racing teammate Aaron Willis jr quickly slotted into second behind him. Bruns started to build up his gap quickly over Willis. The Champaign, Illinois native was looking to have a perfect night as earlier in the evening he had set a new track record for Illini midgets at Grundy County Speedway in qualifying with a lap of 15.852 seconds.
It looked to be another night of MWR domination after a whirlwind week in which Bruns was Disqualified form his Angell Park Speedway feature win on May 25 for illegal bodywork. However, bad luck would continue to follow the team as on lap 19, Bruns Ecotec motor would blow up spewing oil all over the track. Teammate Willis would slide in the oil and slam the turn 4 wall. This would put young gun Jason Allen in the lead under yellow with 6 laps remaining. Allen has been so close to a feature win in the IRS gaining multiple top 5 finishes but has never been able to park it in victory lane. However heartbreak would once again strike the Sugar Grove, Illinois native as during the yellow for the oil cleanup Allen’s battery would die forcing him to pull into the pits.
In a race that seemed like no one wanted to win it, Mike Anderson inherited the race lead. The “Passin Assassin” would take the green flag on the restart and gap the field to easily win his first race of the 2014 season several car lengths in front of 2nd place Dave Ohlendorf. The driver of the #51 Heros West/RHO Chemical/Paint Work by Z Hawk/Fontana was delighted with the result after debuting this brand new pavement car “That yellow flag took forever. I thought we were going to have to pull in and get a pit stop for fuel but the car was running a little bit cool at that time so I cracked the fuel value to halfway to try and conserve as much fuel as I could because the way we base everything around our car is all about weight. Before I went out me and Jimmy (Anderson) talked and I was like let’s throw a lot of fuel in this thing because we want to make sure we can coast across those scales if we have to and be ok. ”
The Joliet, Illinois native knows to finish first , first you must finish, and that was the case Saturday night “Its strategic and like I said last year when we won a couple times sometime you have to be good and sometimes you have to be lucky and tonight I think we were a little bit of both. We still have some work to do on making this work middle out and then I think we will be pretty close to those 10 cars because those guys are on the gas. Down here, this is my home track. I’ve been racing here forever so I know the track pretty well but like I said it seems like middle out we just need to get a little better through there. I look forward to hitting that apex with this car and making it really run hard. On a night like this you have to take it, I feel bad we couldn’t race those 10 cars for the win and even (Jason) Allen had a hell of a run tonight. You have to take the win when you get it.”
Second place finisher Dave Ohlendorf had a strong run at the track he holds his only career victory at. The driver of the #2 Bennies Pizza/Ohlendorf Racing Supply/Eisenburg Law Firm/Jackspeed Shop/Loyalty and Respect Gym Beast/Brayton like many were just happy to finish the race “I ran out of fuel, right before the checkered. Every time I would come out of the corner Anderson pulled away. Every time I would step on the gas it was gone, and then when I would come out of the corner it would pick up so I actually ran out of fuel going across the finish line. I love running Grundy all the time. I flipped the car over in the dirt at Sycamore so I think we are sticking to pavement this year.”
One of the biggest stories of the night was young rookie Travis Mahoney making his midget racing debut. The Mahoney name is steeped with open wheel racing history with Travis looking to make a name for himself. The Oglesby, Illinois native let the race come to him and even after a spin in qualifying and lap 6 of the feature picked cars off one at a time and as cars began to fall out of the race picked up a podium position in his first ever IRS race. The driver of the #93 Liberty Village/The Lodge Pub Beast/Ecotec has experience racing dirt late models at Lasalle Speedway, but nothing quite like this. “I was just hoping to bring the car home in one piece. That’s always a good night for us, I’m ecstatic, my dad’s ecstatic. It’s an amazing feeling. Mike (Anderson) helped me a lot once I got to calm down. He told me to get out there and just relax; he said I was too tense. We go out kart racing and we grab the steering wheels and we are dead by the end of the race and he said that’s what’s happening to me so I was able to go out there and calm down. I got to talk to Aaron Fike a little bit before the race and he helped me get things collected a little bit and got it together for a good run. This car is a lot different than my late model that I ran. The steering is a lot different, getting on the gas is a lot different so I was just taking it to the limit seeing what I could do with the car and seeing what was comfortable and what wasn’t and a lot of times I found out what wasn’t comfortable.”
The Illini Racing Series returns to Grundy County Speedway this Saturday night June 7 for what is sure to be another exciting night of racing.
UNOFFICIAL RESULTS:
Feature (25 Laps): 1)#51 Mike Anderson 2)#2 Dave Ohlendorf 3)#93 Travis Mahoney 4)#76 Danny Drogemuller 5)#6 Dan Smith 6)#9 Mike Strike 7)#3 Doug Orseske 8)#10b Patrick Bruns 9)#54a Jason Allen 10)#10a Aaron Willis Jr 11)#9d Brian Dobis 12)#10c Jimmy Clark Jr 13)#21a Bob Shreffler 14)#24 Lamont Critchett (DNS)

Heat race #1 (8 Laps): 1)#10a Aaron Willis Jr 2)#10b Patrick Bruns 3)#2 Dave Ohlendorf 4)#54a Jason Allen 5)#51 Mike Anderson 6)#10c Jimmy Clark Jr. 7)#93 Travis Mahoney

Heat race #2 (8 Laps): #9d Brian Dobis 2)#76 Danny Drogemuller 3)#9 Dan Smith 4)#6 Mike Strike 5)#3 Doug Orseske 6)#21a Bob Shreffler 7)#24 Lamont Critchett (DNS)

Qualifying: 1) #10b Patrick Bruns (15.852) 2)#10a Aaron Willis Jr (15.981) 3)#51 Mike Anderson (16.195) 4)#93 Travis Mahoney (16.221) 5)#2 Dave Ohlendorf (16.311) 6)#10c Jimmy Clark Jr (16.337) 7)#54a Jason Allen (16.365) 8)#21a Bob Shreffler (16.410) 9)#76 Danny Drogemuller (16.535) 10)#9d Brian Dobis (16.610) 11)#6 Mike Strike (16.732) 12)#3 Doug Orseske (16.766) 13)#9 Dan Smith (17.148) 14)#24 Lamont Critchett (No time)