With regular classes, trucks and rescheduled features from a weather-shortened May 31 program, it was a busy night at Estevan Motor Speedway on Saturday.
The weekend was supposed to feature a doubleheader, with races also on Friday night, but they were postponed due to rain and had yet to be rescheduled as of Monday.
The modified and stock car features from May 31 were going to be tacked on to Friday's program, but they ran Saturday instead. Tyler Wagner and Rocky Alexander, respectively, were the winners.
Later in the evening, the Speedway played host to the Northern Super Truck Racing class, with eight trucks entered. Rod Fidler was the feature winner.
Travis Hagen of Williston captured his first career modified victory at Estevan, taking the feature by a sizeable margin.
"It means everything, man. We put a lot of hard work into this and it's a lot of fun," he said.
Hagen started the feature in third place and had grabbed the lead by the halfway point of the race. He then built a massive lead, but saw it disappear four laps later with one of six caution flags in the race.
He said the constant parade of yellow flags didn't bother him.
"Once I got the lead, it was pretty good, just keep it straight," he said. "It still wasn't bad. I knew there wasn't enough on the bottom to come driving on the bottom, so I knew if I could keep it running up at the top, it was going to be pretty good."
Steven Pfeifer finished second, followed by Tyler Wagner. Hagen's father, Mike, came in 10th.
The younger Hagen said it's nice to be able to race and compete with his dad.
"It's not much of a rivalry. We try and help each other go as fast as we can. He helps me, I help him and we have a lot of fun doing it."
In the stock car feature, Estevan's Austin Daae continued a hot start to the season with a victory. He already has three feature wins in Minot this year.
"It's just trying to be smooth, I guess," Daae said of his success so far in 2014. "Minot has a pretty dry track for driving and car setup (is a big part of) preparation. I've just been able to avoid some of the stuff in Minot and be smooth and consistent.
"Here tonight, too, I was lucky to get through some of the stuff, had some close calls, but once you got back up there and got in the rhythm again trying to stay in a rhythm is one of the biggest things, keep the momentum going and try not to bobble too much. I guess it worked tonight."
Daae started fifth in the feature and moved up to second quickly. Later on, he took the lead with 11 laps left and built a large lead on second-place Gregg Mann, which evaporated when the caution flag came out with three laps left.
Still, Daae got a good jump on the restart and managed to hang on for the final three laps.
To no one's surprise, Brad King picked up his third straight hobby stock victory in Estevan and sixth of the year.
King started in 11th place, an unfamiliar position for the man called the Alaskan Squirrel, but he moved up to third by the halfway point, then took the lead with four laps to go before winning by about a car length.
"I was going as hard as I could and it just worked out well. It seemed like I could go to the bottom or go to the top and I was able to get around people. On a track like this, when you start back there in 11th or 12th, you do want to try to get by.
"That's what I try to do, get on up there, get into that fifth, sixth spot where you can really control your own destiny. It just worked out from there. I really got up there pretty quick. With about seven laps left, I was in third and I was able to get to the front and it was pretty clear sailing from there."
Although Saturday's races had been in doubt due to rain, King said the resulting conditions worked out for him.
"The track was pretty sticky, so that's pretty good conditions for me. The car sticks good and I like to drive in hard."
The next race night for the Speedway is June 28, when the Wissota late model class makes an appearance. The late model feature that was postponed on May 31 will also run that night.
