The Buzz on Wheatland ....or should I say the Fuzz!

 

Eagle River, WI (October 3, 2007) - The season finale’ for the World Series of Off-Road Racing in Wheatland Missouri has come and gone. It was a long drive and a hard fought battle. We put in everything we could to win that Championship battle and still fell short. We knew it was going to be tough going into this weekend but we felt we had what it took to do it. We were able to hold on to 2nd for the 2nd year in a row. We are happy with that and there is always next season.

The crew was on hand Friday to prepare for the two scheduled practice sessions. The weather was sunny, humid and in the 90’s. The plan was to use both practice sessions. They tried different gearing and did some different things with the suspension. Even though we did this on Friday they still planned to use the practice on Saturday too. By the time they got through that they figured it was as good as they were going to get. We were ready to race. We needed to catch Taylor and keep Probst at bay. We hoped Taylor would have problems early and we could finish well just to make up the 13 points we needed going into it.

The track was short and technical, the most technical we have yet to see. Horsepower wasn’t going to do it here, this was all driver. So this would be no problem for Mike.

 

Round 12

He got a great start going into turn one side by side with another truck. They battled through turn two and through number three. The fourth corner is a long sweeper through turns three and four of the stock car track. Mike had the upper hand as he was on the outside. Mike stayed high to build speed for the backstretch. The other guy was low and couldn’t maintain control of his truck. He spun and came out and hit Mike. Mike was able to maintain control and get through that with the lead. We weren’t aware of any damage at this point. By lap two the scenario we had been hoping for happened, Taylor went out after suffering a loss of power. Mike only needed to maintain the lead to bring him within one point of the Championship. But it wasn’t meant to be. the fifth lap a tire had gone down due to the hit early on. The wheel was bent and the tire lost air. Mike went in for a tire change and returned to finish fifth. This only gave us three points so we were still down by ten. We were going to have to take it down to the wire.

Mike went out for practice on Sunday just to insure all was well. The guys checked everything over afterwards and did find a cracked spindle which they had plenty of time to replace. We were the last event of the day. It was too long to wait though as we were all a bundle of nerves.
 

Round 13

Mike again got a great hole shot going into turn one three wide with Mike on the outside, Evan Evans in the middle and Probst on the inside. These guys stayed together all the way to the sweeper before Evans got squirrelly and hit Mike in the right side. This gave Probst the lead but Mike got free and went right after him.
 

Mike caught up in a heart beat and went for the challenge. It looked like Mike was going to take him when our luck ran out once again. The earlier incident with Evans must have bent the right rear shock and it gave out locking up the right rear suspension. All Mike could do was coast around the track and try and hold onto that2nd spot. It looked like Probst would take the win which would have placed us 3rd in points. Then Probst also had problems with his rear suspension and he finished only one spot ahead of Mike. Taylor won it with Mike having to settle with 6th position. It was a tough weekend but we were all happy with it.

 

Now it was time to load up and head home.

We left at 7:00 PM to make the 10 hour ride home. I had already had a visit with a Missouri Police Officer the night before after I apparently missed a stop sign (it was midnight and no cars around, except one). I was following Matt and we made it about 60 miles before I had another visit with an Officer. Apparently I was going a little fast. He couldn’t catch both of us so Matt got away (I’m starting Gilly’s Ticket Fund by the way). I can tell you that the Officers in Missouri are very friendly. After this I left my Drivers License on the console so I wouldn’t have to dig it out the next time (if the Ticket Fund doesn’t work I may have to change that to a Bail Fund). This was going to be an even longer ride home because Illinois is usually worse. Everyone in my car went to sleep so I talked with Mike for awhile. Then I talked with Matt a couple of times to see where he was at. I should have caught up to him but he took a different route (if the Bail Fund doesn’t work just send Soap on-a Rope). The rest of the trip was uneventful and we arrived home at 5:00 AM.
 

More Racing to Come
The WSORR is over but not our season. We plan to head west to jump into the CORR Series at the Texas Motor Speedway in October and then follow them to Las Vegas in November. We need to show those CORR guys that the real racers were racing in the Midwest. Besides, we need to go out and defend our win of the Jason Baldwin Memorial Cup (I still haven’t seen that cup). We plan to kick some butt out there. So if you have no plans it’s starting to get colder in the north so head west and join us (I’m leaving the car home and flying. I hear those Texas Rangers are something else). I’ll let you all know how that works out and plan to see a lot of you at the PRI Show in Orlando in December.

-Mark “Gilly” Gelhausen – Oberg Motorsports Crew Chief
www.obergmotorsports.com 
 

 

Photos from Bark River, MI

 

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more photos from Bark River