(Photo by Rob Kocak Photos)
Sept. 21, 2020: Huset’s Speedway was the venue to cap off a wild 2020 season, and the bullring in Brandon, SD did not disappoint. The story over both nights was the hard-charging and aggressive West coast contingent making their way to the Midwest and eventually victory lane. In the end, San Jose, CA native Tim Kaeding took the Lunstra Motorsports machine into the winners circle and collected the $10,000 grand prize on Saturday night.
Things got kicked off Friday night to open the Dekalb/Asgrow Power Series Nationals presented by Casey’s General Stores at Huset’s Speedway, and the $5,000 prelim night feature was won by Californian Shane Golobic. The opening lap was led by 2nd place starter Lynton Jeffrey, and he would maintain that top spot until Lap 8. Golobic moved up from his 3rd starting spot, and used the outside line to power around Lynton Jeffrey in traffic to take the race lead. Jeffrey, Jack Dover, Carson McCarl and Austin McCarl would have an intense battle behind Golobic the rest of the way. Jack Dover would eventually move around Jeffrey for second around 15 laps into the feature. Lap 19 brought out a red flag as Skylar Prochaska spun in turns 1 & 2 and then 5th place running Carson McCarl could not avoid the stopped 35 car, leading to a tip-over. Golobic would hold off one last charge from Jack Dover on the final set of turns to win the feature by less than 2 tenths of a second. Dover finished second followed by Austin McCarl, Eric Lutz, and Lynton Jeffrey. Brooke Tatnell was hard-charger coming in 7th after passing 11 cars. It was a clean sweep for Golobic on the night, as he won $200 from Nordica Warehouses for setting the fastest time, and $100 from Broty Race Engines for winning a heat race. Jack Dover, Lynton Jeffrey, and Carson McCarl won the other heats.
Saturday’s $10,000 to win finale of the Power Series Nationals was full of drama from start to finish. A record field for the year of 48 cars checked into the pits, and things were hot and heavy in the heat races. Davey Heskin, Tim Kaeding, Clint Garner, and Lyton Jeffrey would win the $100 bonuses from GRP Motorpsorts for winning their heats, but special attention was paid to heat race number four which saw strong runners Joe Beaver, Gregg Bakker, and Austin McCarl bow out before the checkered flag could wave. The overall fast timer was Matt Juhl, picking up the $200 bonus from Nordica Warehouses. The excitement continued in the B main as James Broty would charge forward 7 spots and Tim Estenson 9 spots, only to finish 5th and 6th respectively to just miss out on the main event. The story of big passing numbers and hard-charging through the field would only continue during the big 30-lap feature race.
Huset’s Speedway has spent many years cultivating a reputation of close-quarters, high-intensity, edge-of-your-seat action, and the largest paying A-main purse in 360 sprint car racing in the history of South Dakota lived up to, and surpassed, that reputation easily. Tim Kaeding and Lynton Jeffrey would lead the field to green with the California runner leading lap one. The first couple of circuits would see a couple of miss-steps. On lap 2 there was a red for Cody Ledger getting hard upside-down after contact with Kyle Offill. On lap 3 the yellow would fly again for a Skylar Prochaska spin, and lap 5 again for Kaleb Johnson spin. At that point, the field was able to race under the green flag for an extended period, seeing lap traffic for the first time on lap 8. While Tim Kaeding led, the story early on was 2020 series champion Justin Henderson. He started in 11th, but quickly made moves through the field. In the early laps, he would make aggressive moves highlighted by pushing three-wide down the back stretch to pass two cars, and by lap 10, he was already up to the 3rd spot. Two laps later he used the diamond line out of the second turn to move into the runner-up position. On lap 14, the caution would fly again, erasing a nearly 5 second advantage for leader Tim Kaeding and putting the hottest driver in the 360 division right on his tail-tank. The ensuing restart would see Henderson pressure the Lunstra Motorsports 3 car, but he was not able to get close enough to attempt a pass. Soon after that the hard-charging Friday night winner Shane Golobic would move into the frame, coming from 17th to the 3rd position with only 6 laps to go. He passed Henderson with 5 to go to move into 2nd. One lap later the final caution of the night would come for Lee Grosz bunching those three up again, and creating one final bit of drama. Kaeding would hold off his fellow Californian to pick up the huge payday and celebrate in style, spinning doughnuts in turns 3 & 4 before climbing on the wing.
Victory Lane was pure excitement for the veteran driver. TK took a borrowed engine from the Scelzi Motorsports team and made good use of it. “I felt like the old TK right there, get up on the fence and run the living piss out of the thing” he would say on the front stretch post-race interview. With Dominic Scelzi all smiles, he joined the entire Lunstra team on the front stretch to celebrate. Runner-up Shane Golobic was down on the front stretch as well. Golobic turned in an impressive feat after starting deep in the field. “17th to 2nd is nothing to hang your head about, but like to be one spot better,” said a happy Golobic. “I don’t think we had anything for him,” he said of the winner. Jack Dover would hold on for 3rd. Incredibly, 17th to 2nd did not earn Golobic the hard-charger award, as B-Main winner Trey Starks came from 21st starting spot to finish 4th (a +17 effort). Clint Garner rounded out the top 5.
Justin Henderson is officially the 2020 Midwest Power Series Champion, as he picked up five feature wins in eight starts this season. Jody Rosenboom finished the season in 2nd, just two points ahead of Jack Dover. Eric Lutz and Kaleb Johnson rounded out the top 5. Johnson came from the tail of the field after his lap 5 spin onto the inside berm in turn 2 to charge back up to 10th at the checkers, earning the young driver just enough extra points to edge out Gregg Bakker for the fifth spot in the final standings. These drivers will collect their awards at the banquet on November 14, as the Midwest Power Series joins together with the Midwest Sprint Touring Series (MSTS) at their banquet. More details regarding the awards banquet will be released at a later date. The top five in the final points will earn point fund checks.
Full Results
A Feature (30 Laps): 1. 3-Tim Kaeding[1]
2. 17W-Shane Golobic[17]
3. 53-Jack Dover[9]
4. 44S-Trey Starks[21]
5. 40-Clint Garner[6]
6. 14T-Brooke Tatnell[4]
7. 83-Lynton Jeffrey[2]
8. 81-Terry McCarl[15]
9. 09-Matt Juhl[7]
10. 22-Kaleb Johnson[24]
11. 88-Kyle Offill[18]
12. 14-Jody Rosenboom[14]
13. 20G-Chris Graf[10]
14. 11M-Brendan Mullen[12]
15. 17-Lee Goos Jr[13]
16. 23W-Sam Henderson[16]
17. (DNF) 83M-Justin Henderson[11]
18. (DNF) 4J-Lee Grosz[5]
19. (DNF) 35-Skylar Prochaska[19]
20. (DNF) ACE-Dusty Zomer[8]
21. (DNF) 56N-Davey Heskin[3]
22. (DNF) 33B-Scott Broty[20]
23. (DNF) 5-Eric Lutz[22]
24. (DNF) 35L-Cody Ledger[23]