LaCrosse WI Octoberfest 2009
By Jim Heiland
This was the 40th anniversary of the LaCrosse Octoberfest race weekend. It was my second time at the track. It’s a 5/8 mile oval, with a lot of history.
This year we had 14 vintage stock cars attending from 3 states.
Tom Stettner, Jerry Gamer and Jim Heiland arrived with motor homes and were told we could not park on the infield pits..because we were over 9 ft. 6 in. We had to pit just out side the track entrance. It was somewhat upset because we were detached from the rest of the group. The track officials did a good job of getting us out on time for our events. We had 2 heats of 7 cars and a feature.
I was in the first heat, started 4. After a few laps I was leading, only to see Roger Meyer #77 and Brennen Lewis #29, right on my bumper and door. At the checkered flag you could cover the 3 of us with a blanket. That was a fun race.
The second heat was going good until Nick Beaver bumped into Bob Heine on the front stretch sending Nick bouncing off the wall all the way to turn one. Good news everyone was OK. Ken Hutchins #13 won that race.
The feature was fun too. Lots of good racing. On the last lap Chris Loberg was in hot pursuit of Ken Hutchins and spun out going into turn one, Ken won the feature, I’m not sure were anyone finished after that, I was to busy watching Loberg spin out
We saw a great ASA Late Model 100 Lap race, and Trucks too.
Weather started out at 29 degrees and warmed up to a whopping 43. At least the sun was warm. As you can see by the pictures, Monday morning in Minnesota we had 3 inches of SNOW. Snow does not look natural on a race car.
Clubs represented were IMCA Old Timers, Grand National Vintage Stock Car Racers and Northern Vintage Stock Car Racers.
Remember stay under 9ft 6in.
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