Recapturing the winning feeling

• Cory Reisenauer

Press Photo by Royal McGregor Dickinson’s Cory Reisenauer, front, racing the Thunder 4 feature on Friday at the Southwest Speedway. Reisenauer won the Thunder 4 feature to start the season and won the feature on Friday for his second win of the season.

Talk about it

Randy Sandvick said, “You never forget how to race.”

Sandvick took a three-year hiatus from racing, but he finally found himself in the feature race in the IMCA Modifieds on Friday at the Southwest Speedway.

“I’ve been here three nights now,” Sandvick said. “My car is ’09 and it sat on my hoist for two years and two months.”

The Killdeer resident, who focused the last three years on his oil business, knew he had the car to win. However, before the first lap was over there were multiple cautions.

“This thing is bad fast. These guys don’t have a prayer,” he said with a laugh. “You just have to drive these like you stole them and every cop is after you, then they work.”

Sandvick maintained a healthy distance from leader Randy Burwick. When there were five laps left, Sandvick made his move and created space from Burwick.

“Burwick put on a good show,” Sandvick said. “He raced good and clean.”

In the Thunder 4, Dickinson’s Cory Reisenauer made it back to victory lane. He won the season opener, while finished second a couple times.

“I just wanted to keep it as hard as I started, don’t let up a bit,” he said.

Reisenauer led the entire race and he could hear someone behind him. Those drivers were Derek Nitschke and Nylee Boyce.

“I didn’t know if it was him or somebody else, but I could hear them the whole way,” Reisenauer said.

The Pure Stocks was won by a newcomer to Southwest Speedway. Jeremy Engelhardt knew his car thrived on the track conditions.

“We heard that the track was tacky, our car really likes tacky tracks and everything worked out well,” Engelhardt said.

With Engelhardt first trip to the Southwest Speedway, he said he enjoyed the level of competition.

“I think Scott Gartner actually had a faster car than us, but ours was handling was really well,” Engelhardt said.

In the Wissota Street Stocks, Monte Gawryluk had a feeling when he was at the front that no one could catch him — he was right.

“I like starting up front,” Gawryluk said. “You don’t have to deal with traffic and that makes a big difference.”

Gawryluk knew the rain the last couple of days was going to play a factor in the track conditions, but he wanted to give thanks to the staff at the Southwest Speedway.

“It was very tacky,” he said. “It’s a little rough, but that’s to be expected from all the rain. The track conditions have been good all year long.”

Thunder 4

Heat 1: 1, Nylee Boyce. 2, Cory Reisenauer. 3, Derek Nitschke. 4, Cody Hulse. 5, Lucas Preston. 6, Scott Hagemeister. 7, Gary Barnett. 8, Khord Christe. 9, Steve Jahner.

Feature: 1, Reisenauer. 2, Hulse. 3, Boyce. 4, Barnett. 5, Hagemeister. 6, Preston. 7, Jahner. 8, Christe. 9, Nitschke.

Pure Stocks

Heat 1: 1. Jeremy Engelhardt. 2, Chad Jahner. 3, Deryk Voller. 4, Devon Wandler. 5, Jon Wells. 6, Terin Gawryluk. 7, Casey Vernon. 8, Dion Makowski.

Heat 2: 1, Scott Gartner. 2, Schaun Olheiser. 3, Darren Kruger. 4, Tyler Bartholomew. 5, Donn/ Thadyne Olstad.

Heat 3: 1, Cole Lewis. 2, Hunter Domagala. 3, Mark Selle. 4, Roy Erickson. 5, Aaron Aaseth. 6, Alex Braun. 7, Nathan Messer.

Feature: 1, Engelhardt. 2, Jahner. 3, Domagala. 4, Lewis. 5, Booke. 6, Voller. 7, Olheiser. 8, Wandler. 9, Gawryluk. 10, Erickson. 11, Bartholomew. 12, Wells. 13, Deavy. 14, Maher. 15, Braun. 16, Kruger. 17, Gartner. 18, Selle. 19, Messer. 20, Makowski. 21, Vernon. 22, Aaseth.

Wissota Street Stocks

Heat 1: 1, Allan Frederick. 2, T.C. Shelhamer. 3, Travis Ulmer. 4, Kelly Hoerner. 5, Terry Zastoupil. 6, Darin Tarrel. 7, Richard Jordan. 8, Hailey Jordan.

Heat 2: 1, Josh Olheiser. 2, Jim Heaton. 3, Zach Frederick. 4, Monte Gawryluk. 5, Mike Miller. 6, Paul Decker.

Feature: 1, Gawryluk. 2, Zach Frederick. 3, Heaton. 4, Olheiser. 5, Shelhamer. 6, Allan Frederick. 7, Zastoupil. 8, Hoerner. 9, Richard Jordan. 10, Haley Jordan. 11, Tarrel. 12, Ulmer. 13, Decker. 14, Miller. 15, Wanner.

IMCA Modifieds

Heat 1: 1, Darrell Bauer. 2, Dwight Burwick. 3, Randy Sandvick. 4, Dave Aberle. 5, Brian Brennan.

Heat 2: 1, Wyatt Dinius. 2, Randy Burwick. 3, Eric Paul. 4, Nathan Speten. 5, Tim Perkins.

Heat 3: 1, Rusty Corneliusen. 2, Travis Olheiser. 3, Tracy Domagala. 4, Paul Schulz.

Feature: 1, Sandvick. 2, Bauer. 3, Randy Burwick. 4, Domagala. 5, Miller. 6, Decker. 7, Perkins. 8, Olheiser. 9, Aberle. 10, Dwight Burwick. 11, Corneliusen. 12, Paul. 13, Makowski. 14, Brennan. 15, Speten. 16, Schulz. 17, Dinius.

Tags: southwest speedway, sports, races