Drivers from as far away as Winnipeg and Edmonton ripped up the track at the Estevan Motor Speedway last Saturday in the Northern Thunder Dirt Late Models Tour special feature, but it was the usual suspects who took the top spots.
Tyson Turnbull took advantage of his pole position starting spot and never relinquished the lead in the 20-lap late model feature to take the checkered flag. Despite a strong showing from Winnipeg’s Mike Balcaen, it was Tyson’s brother Aaron Turnbull who ran a fast high groove to pass Balcaen high on the back straightaway on the fifth lap to take the second place position, and then held onto the spot from there.
“I was hoping the bottom had more traction on the start and the first couple laps I was with them,” said Balcaen. “Those two brothers know this place obviously very well and they knew where to go. By the time I went up to where they were we were both the same speed, so by then it was too late.”
Balcaen said his participation in the Northern Thunder Dirt Late Models Tour stop in Estevan came by chance, as he normally doesn’t run with the Tour.
“We ride on Red River Co-Op Speedway in Winnipeg on Thursdays and then Grand Forks on Fridays and then we run several different tracks on Saturdays,” said Balcaen, noting he has raced in Estevan before. “I knew they were running here and it was a bit of a special, so it was a night off and we decided to drive over from Grand Forks.”
Travis Hagen, Ed Turnbull, Tyler Wagner and Jim Harris put on a show in the modified feature that preceded the late models. Harris lined up on the track in fourth position and jumped into top spot by the second lap of the 25-lap race. He was quickly followed at the front by Hagen, who began in the seventh position, Turnbull, who started sixth, and the third seed Wagner.
Running the cushion at the top of the track Hagen passed the low running Harris seven laps in. With 12 laps to go, Harris then found himself in a battle for second with Turnbull and Wagner.
Despite losing the second spot a few times during the race, including a point in the 23rd lap where Turnbull slingshot past Tim Dignan to take the lead, Harris finished in second place with Wagner running third and Turnbull close behind in fourth.
In the Weatherford Hobby Stock feature, Minot’s Brock Beater provided the highlight of the night by overtaking Carl Hanson on the final corner to take the lead and the win. Beater and Hanson battled it out for first place since the eighth lap of the 20-lap race with the two drivers exchanging runs both on the top and inside of the track to maintain their positions.
Beater and Hanson ran neck-to-neck into the final corner and found themselves blocked by lap cars. Beater ran down low to pass and Hanson became trapped up high behind a car, giving the Minot native the victory.
As with the other features, the 14-car 20-lap stock car main was virtually caution-free. Starting in the seventh position, Gregg Mann quickly advanced to the front by running an inside groove and stayed in the top spot for the final 18 laps of the race, despite strong opposition from Chris Hortness, who finished in second, and the third place Brendon Labatte.
“If we get dealt a slicker track, guys are racing side-by-side and it’s easier to spin out when you’ve got minimal traction to the car,” said Mann about the racing conditions at the track after the hot weather of the previous week. “Tonight it was good. We had a lot of grip. It was a racy track and we had high and low grooves. When you get a track with more traction it’s easier for guys to spread out and get away. You don’t have to race door-to-door.”
Mann said entering corners around the middle of the track and then cutting down low worked for him in the stock car main. He said with the wide lead he enjoyed, there was no reason to change his line and his car was handling the bottom well.
“The car really rotated through the middle,” he said, “so it was easy to get in and just let it do its thing and just drive the bottom and enter up, enter back about the middle in the next corner and just let it drive its own line.”
Mann said this was his third win at the Estevan Motor Speedway this year, but he’s mainly happy just to be finishing races after his poor start to the season. He didn’t finish his first two races this year, came back and won the next two and stayed top three for the majority of the rest, but a bad showing two weeks ago made him eager for a win Saturday night.
“The last race we ended up getting spun out and piled into and wrecked the car,” said Mann. “We were leading that one too. I thought we had the car good that night. So it’s just bad luck. You get dealt bad luck once in a while and you got to rebound and try again.”
