Calcutta night at the Estevan Motor Speedway may as well have been known as North Dakota night as the three feature races were swept by North Dakota drivers.
Zach Lutz of Burlington, N.D. won the High Energy Performance Hobby Stocks, Chris Ellis of Stanley, N.D. won the Energy Electric Street Stock cars and Travis Hagen of Williston won the Kendall's Supply Modifieds.
Lutz was even part of the team that won the Calcutta, which also featured Austin Daae and Joey Galloway. The Calcutta was won by a total of the amount of passes the team's members made in a race with representatives of all three classes on the track.
Lutz' race was the closest, as he eked out a win over Lampman's Leevi Runge by less than a carlength.
“The lap before the last lap, I saw her nose underneath, which he probably shouldn't have done because I just push it as hard as I could,” said Lutz. “I knew I just had to keep her on the rails and I could hopefully get her to the finish line.”
Lutz got a big lead early on in the feature race but as what seems to frequently happen in the hobby stocks race, there was a caution after a car was sent either over the embankment on top or down to the infield. That happened with ten laps to go, bringing Runge back to Lutz and the two had one of the tightest races of the year, ending only when lapped traffic started becoming a factor.
“I was hoping there wasn't going to be a caution,” he said. “But I knew my car was good and I liked the track.”
Ellis, meanwhile, doesn't race in Estevan too often – with one win and three top ten appearances in only four races – but clearly enjoys the track when he is here.
“I started on the pole and had no where to run,” said Ellis. “You're kind of a sitting duck on the pole. But I got out to a lead and didn't hear any motors behind me. I just stuck to the same line and it worked.”
His car was too fast for the competition and with no caution flags at all in the race, he cruised to the wire-to-wire victory. He won in Minot once before in the same position.
“When the track's as fast as it was, it really helps to start on the pole,” Ellis said. “You've got some of the fastest stock car drivers up here. The competition is fierce, (with) Gregg Mann, Austin Daae, (Jeremy) Swanson. They're all fast. So you better be on your A game if you want to win up here.”
Hagen's win was slightly closer but with a couple of cautions due to debris on the track. Another caution happened with three laps to go when Tyler Wagner went over the embankment between turns one and two. Second place driver Joey Galloway was brought back closer to the leader but Hagen resumed his lead to win the race.
“We like coming here,” said Hagen, who has been going to the Estevan Motor Speedway since he was a child. “It's like a home track to us. We don't feel like out of towners. We always come here and race and Willistion every other Saturday. I like the track up here.”
The Calcutta was seen by the drivers as a fun race for the fans to watch. It starts with a grouping of the the modifieds trying to catch a grouping of the hobby stocks and passing them, with the street stocks in front of them.
“On the mods side, you just try to get to the hobbys and then you start slicing and dicing wherever you see a hole,” Hagen said. “You come up on them pretty hard. You're half a straightaway back and then the next corner, you're on them. You're trying to plan in advance but trying to race at the same time.”
Hagen said once he was in a Calcutta as a hobby stock driver a few years ago.
“I don't like being on the hobby stock side because you don't know where the cars are coming from,” he said. “At least with the mod, you can kind of pick where you're going to go and stay out of trouble that way.”
Daae enjoyed the chance to race in it again and was part of the winning team.
“It's cool. Just being out there with all them, I can see what the mods are doing for a couple of laps and then they disappear,” he said. “Then in the first segment, we caught a couple of the hobby stocks, so that was cool.”
There is no set goal for the drivers of the street stocks, who are seeing if they can catch the hobby stocks in a fairly low pressure race.
“It's pretty relaxed, I think,” Daae said. “Guys try to stay off each other. With the points, all that's done for the night. Everyone just tries to win some cash and have as much fun with it as they can.”
In the points race for the hobby stocks, Lutz leads Devon Gonas by a single point (302-301) going into the final race of the season Friday. Landon Runge (288) is a fair bit behind in third place.
Mann has a slightly bigger lead on Daae in the street stocks at 346-336, with Chris Hortness (323) in third place. Galloway has a 12 point lead in the modifieds over Riley Emmel (335-323) and 15 points on Kody Scholpp (320).
