Sports

Championship night at TMS ends with a bang

By Tyler Ohmann

08/27/2013

The race season came to a close last night with an exciting finish in the sport stock division.

Points leader Steve Beckedahl was cruising and looking like he would hold on to his six point lead over Brian Bellew.

All of a sudden a loud bang jolted the crowd as Beckedahl was forced up onto the guard rail while racing along side Kevin Smith at the end of the fence and popped both right side tires. He would have to leave the race with his point lead in the balance.

“It was not quite the way I wanted it to happen, and my regards go out to Steve (Beckedahl),” Smith said. “I definitely did not mean for anything to happen to him, and I still don’t even know what happened, so I wish him the best too and hope he is happy with the finish as well.”

Later in the race after a few cautions, second place Bellew re-entered the track, but was given a black flag and disqualified for causing too many yellow flags.

This gave the 06 car of Smith a chance to get the win.

After Smith finished in third place the points were tallied and it was determined that Beckedahl and Smith were to share the points title for 2013.

“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me here,” Smith said. “It was the first time that I’ve ever finished one or two, let alone tied for first. I’ve gotten third fourth and fifth here in seasons before and this tops it all.”

Smith, who is from Boissevain, Manitoba wasn’t even planning on coming at all.

“I wasn’t even planning on coming, we were planning on going to Bowdon for a two day race meet, but we got rained out yesterday and I found out I was only seven points behind, so we thought we’d come and see if we could get a top-three finish,” Smith said. “Luck was on our side, I managed to get seven points and tie for the lead. I can’t really complain about that.”

The track also helped allow Smith to get a share of the points title.

“Things just kind of fell into place,” Smith said. “The track was good and tacky in the heats, but it dried out a little during the feature, it was dry-slick and it made for some good, fast racing.”

Boomer Patterson earned the checkered flag in the feature race and it bumped him into a tie for second place with Bellew.

Things were just as interesting in the Wissota Midwest Modified feature race.

The season points total was Norm Reitan’s to lose, and he did not do that.

Reitan had a 12 point lead and finished the feature race in third to win the title.

However, the exciting part of the race was who finished first and second.

Lance Schill led for most of the 20-lap race, but Bottineau’s Shawn Nostdahl made a strong run the final few laps and crossed the finish line a split-second ahead of Schill to earn the victory.