If Iowa's David Rieks wasn't busy in his home state's racing calendar, he'd likely be tearing up the points standings in IMCA Hobby Stocks here at the Estevan Motor Speedway.
Such is life though, and although Rieks' sister will marry into Estevan racing royalty, he hadn't raced at the EMS until last weekend, when he took races Friday and Saturday at the Border City Dirt Wars, pleasing family and pocketing a few dollars as well.
“I'm blown away,” said Rieks after winning Saturday. “I didn't know what to expect but to clean sweep both nights, to do that is pretty tough. There's a lot of competition... I'm as stoked as I could be right now to be honest.”
Outlasting Riley Raynard, who had drawn the pole position both nights after the heats, was an important factor Saturday. A late charge from Devon Gonas went for naught, and although a caution with three laps to go pushed them closer. Rieks' 78xx car held off the challenge, claiming his second win.
“My sister and her fiance live up here, Tyson Turnbull and Katie Rieks, and they had their baby Lucy,” Rieks said. “I had never been to Canada so I thought why don't we come up and make a trip of it. We came up last Sunday and enjoyed the town. People here are amazing. And obviously they have a racetrack here so we decided to drag my car all the way up here.”
His coming to the Dirt Wars event was planned since last year, he said, and he hopes to be back next year and maybe in other races as well. The competition was great here, he said, but he is a well-seasoned driver in his home state.
“I mean, 'Iowa fast', they give me crap about that but the thing about that is you can race Wednesday through Sunday if you want,” he said. “And you can throw a stone and hit a racetrack. From my house, there's ten within an hour.”
Speaking of Americans who won this weekend, Williston, ND's Travis Hagen took the A modifieds race Saturday with a late pass over Joey Galloway with three laps to go.
“I knew that Joey was on the bottom,” said Hagen about his thoughts after the last caution. “I probably wouldn't have got him if he wouldn't have messed up. He kind of slipped up a hair and I was able to get under him, drive down to the corner and beat him to the spot. After that, I just tried to tuck her down tight on the tires and not push out.”
The racing season has been hectic for a lot of drivers, but it's not too busy for Hagen.
“The biggest thing is we ran the mod tour last weekm so we ran seven nights there. And then the week before that we ran the hobby tour and that was five days in a row,” Hagen said. “It's definitely a busy part of the year but it's the best time of the year to race.”
Austin Daae won the street stocks race Saturday by a fender over Stanley, ND's Chris Ellis.
“Taking the green flag, I knew (Ellis) was really good,” said Daae. “I knew the bottom was starting to come in a bit and he made it stick pretty good.”
A caution with a couple of laps to go bunched up the cars again after Daae had taken a comfortable lead. It took Daae's consistent plan of going on the high side of the track that led him to the line he was able to win with.
“On a track like this, you can go everywhere to run,” he said. “If you can go up there, I'm usually up there. If I can make that work, it seems like it works out pretty good for us.”
Friday, Rieks won the hobby stocks, Riley Emmel won the modifieds, and Chris Hortness won the street stocks.
Galloway leads the modifieds standings with 219 points as of July 21, just a hair over Emmel and Riley Schlopp, who each have 212. Zach Lutz was leading the hobby stocks with 193 points, leading Gonas (188) and Tyler Lucy (186). Gregg Mann is comfortably in the lead in the street stocks with 235 points, ahead of Daae (218) and Joren Boyce (216).
The next racing at the EMS will take place Aug. 4 at Emergency Services Awareness Night. Modifieds, street stocks and hobby stocks are all on the menu.
