Dobmeier dominates second leg of King of the Wings NOSA-IRA challenge
Jul. 15—GRAND FORKS — With five laps to go, Mark Dobmeier knew his lead wasn't totally safe. On a restart, he figured he'd hit lapped traffic before the checkered flag dropped. That's something no leader wants to see in the closing laps.
And Dobmeier was right. But as he usually does, he was able to navigate lapped traffic and survive a late surge, this time from Austin Pierce.
Dobmeier won Friday night's 30-lap King of the Wings NOSA-IRA sprint challenge feature at River Cities Speedway, a win that puts him in good shape to win the King of the Wings title as the three-race series wraps up Saturday night at The Bullring. Dobmeier picked up $3,000 for winning the event.
Dobmeier also won the series opener Thursday night in Fergus Falls, Minn. He was dominate at RCS on Night 2, winning his heat race, winning his dash before leading all 30 laps of the feature.
But there was some drama in the closing laps.
"With five laps to go, I knew we were going to catch lapped traffic at some point," said Dobmeier. "I had a blistering pace at first but I caught a lapped car and made one bad call.
Austin came with a slider coming into Turns 3 and 4. I knew it was coming. I got on the berm and gave it as much speed as I could and gave it back to him on the front straightaway to get by him.
"It was good, hard racing at the end. It was fun racing Austin. We race each other super hard but it's clean at the same time."
Pierce, who won one of the King of the Wings challenge races last season at RCS, was strong in the closing laps. With two to go, he made his move for another win.
"After I slid him, I knew Mark would have time to get underneath me because I had to back it into to Turn 4 and wait for my wheels to pick up again," said Pierce. "I was hoping another lapped car would slow him down again.
"It was a good run for our team. We got a second last night but we want to get our 50th (career) win."
The challenge series drew 39 sprints, one of the largest sprint car counts in the history of River Cities Speedway. The IRA features cars from Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.
Brenham Crouch, an IRA driver from Lubbock, Texas, finished third followed by Josh Schneiderman of West Burlington, Iowa. NOSA regular Brendan Mullen rounded out the top 5.
Crouch was in good position to win Thursday's race in Fergus Falls, but a blown tire came with the driver of the No. 1 car the lead, opening the door for Dobmeier.
It was night for sprints at RCS. There were four classes of sprints, wingless, lightning sprints, IMCA RaceSaver sprints and the 410 sprints.
Crouch posted the fastest qualifying time in Group A at 10.759 seconds while NOSA regular Nick Omdahl was the fastest in Group B at 10.783 seconds.
It was a long night of racing with the high car count and a brief weather interruption for sprinkles that hit the track around 9 p.m.
The King of the Wings feature started at 11:56 p.m. and ended at 12:23 a.m.
"Hats off to River Cities for an awesome track," said Dobmeier. "It started out sticky and moved to a cushion but there was still enough on the bottom to get around cars if you needed to."
In other features, Adam Sobolik of Grand Forks pulled off an impressive win in the non-wing class.
He started 18th in the feature but won the 20-lap event, overtaking leader Ken Hron with four laps to go. Brake issues forced Sobolik out of his heat race and left him starting deep in the field for the feature.
He edged Hron by 0.785 seconds.
In the IMCA RaceSaver series feature, Andy Pake of Felton, Minn., was in fourth place with two laps to go but managed to take the win, overtaking Tye Wilke for the win. He is the son of Brad Pake, who won a number of sprint races at RCS in the 1990s and early 2000s.
In the lightning sprint feature, Dexter Dvergsten dominated the 20-lap event. It was his seventh-straight win.
