6/2/2009
Two Wins in the Past Two Weeks for Dobmeier
After four straight weeks of being postponed, Mark Dobmeier’s home track of River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks, North Dakota was finally able to get their season started. Mark has always been very successful at this particular place winning the championship 5 of the last 6 seasons. His first race out this year at River Cities, Mark was able to dominate his heat as well as the feature taking the opener and setting the pace for the season. Just this past Friday for the track’s second race of the season, Mark came from the tail of the heat to take the win. With the accumulated points for the night, the Delta Oil Senske & Son Transfer #13 started on the outside of the fifth row for the main event. With five laps to go on the fast 3/8ths mile dirt track, Dobmeier took the lead and never looked back.
Winning the first two races at River Cities puts him at the top of the points with a 14 point gap between him and veteran sprint car driver, Wade Nygaard. “That’s always a good way to start out a season,” explains Mark, “I have always loved this racetrack and being up front every week means so much to me for our team and our sponsors.” It must mean a lot for the supporters of Lunstra/Dobmeier Motorsports because two of the team’s sponsors, Big Trucks by Jimco and Right Choice Electric, both out of Grand Forks, are going to each match the $10,000 prize if Mark and the gang are able to put the Lunstra/Dobmeier Motorsports #13 in victory lane on the 19th of June when the best of the best come to town, the World of Outlaw’s.
The last two weeks at Knoxville have been very respectable for the team; Two weeks ago, Mark and the gang qualified the Senske & Son Delta Oil machine 15th quick to start out the night and were able to take the heat race victory from the front row starting spot. He started on the pole for the main event at the historical Knoxville Raceway was running second, but being just a little off on the set-up, Mark got shuffled back to 6th to cap off the night. “We went into the season here at Knoxville wanting those top fives,” explains the mildly disappointed veteran, “We were just off on the car tonight. A 6th place finish isn’t bad, but it certainly isn’t meeting our goals. We take each race as its own and we do very well about learning from our mistakes, so I am sure we will be back up there next week!”
This past weekend at the famed speedway, the team set out for their top five goal, but just missed it finishing 6th once again. They qualified 12th to start out the night and went from fourth to third in the heat race. Starting on the inside of the 5th row for the main event, Mark raced up to 6th before the rubber came down making a fast one lane racetrack with no passing.
Huset’s Speedway has always treated Lunstra/Dobmeier Motorsports very well and over the memorial weekend the team raced a double-header with the Northern Outlaw Sprint Association (NOSA) 410 Outlaw Sprints at the “Home of the Professionals.” The first night of the two Mark started second in the main, but with just a couple laps into the contest and fighting for the lead with veteran driver Clint Garner, Dobmeier got tangled up with some lap traffic bending the front axle and putting a hole in the right rear tire. The team had only enough time to fix the flat and Mark restarted at the tail of the field in the 24th position with a bent front axle. “Dynamite” Dobmeier put the hammer down and kept the elbows up for the remainder of the event and drove the Lunstra/Dobmeier Motorsports #13 back up to 7th passing over half the field.
The following night Mark started 8th in the main and on the second lap a mud clump went through the right side panel of the car damaging the throttle linkage and only allowing Mark to back down to ¼ throttle. “It was pretty interesting”, explains Mark, “I could feel that my leg got hit by something and after I realized a piece of mud came into the cockpit I noticed that I couldn’t let the throttle all the way off. So pulling off a top 5 tonight is just fantastic!”
Mark sits at the top spot for the points battle at Huset’s Speedway with the 11x of Gregg Bakker only 3 points behind. Next up for the Lunstra/Dobmeier team will be another three day weekend starting at River Cities Speedway followed by Knoxville on Saturday and ending the weekend of racing with the fastest ½ mile dirt track in the Midwest, Huset’s Speedway.
Special thanks to Senske & Son Transfer, Delta Oil, Dekalb Seed, Dahlstrom Motors, Big Trucks by Jimco, Right Choice Electric, Forx Radiator, Dammer Brothers Livestock Transportation, Anderson Brothers Body Shop, K & N Air Filters, Forks Mobile Wash, Awesome Racewear, Rite Spot Liquor, X-treme Polishing, the Disabled American Veterans and Driver Websites.com.
