5/7/2016
Richert Opens UMSS Season With Gale Patterson Memorial Win at CLS
The father-son relationship in the world of motorsports is very common, and it was only fitting that a son from the famous Richert racing family of Forest Lake, Minnesota earned his way to Rock Auto Victory Lane on Saturday night May 7 at the Cedar Lake Speedway to win the Gale Patterson Memorial. A beautiful spring day brought a good-sized crowd and a strong field of 22 UMSS winged sprint cars to the track for the lid lifter on the 2016 racing season for the UMSS winged sprint division. Richert, driving the potent Donnohue Designs sprinter, took the lead on lap 15 from rookie winged sprint racer Chase Viebrock of New Richmond and led the remainder of the distance in the 25 lap main event. In the closing laps, and especially on the final lap, Derrik Lusk of Jackson put the pressure on in an attempt to wrestle the lead from Richert. Stated Richert after the race, "I heard Lusk right behind me on that final lap and really drove hard to keep him there. This was a great night, and I am very pleased to have won this special race." The wily veteran withstood the challenge and celebrated with his crew and Chad Patterson in Rock Auto Victory Lane following his 19th career UMSS feature win and second at the legendary western Wisconsin dirt track. Richert's only previous UMSS win at Cedar Lake came back in the inaugural season of 2009 when he won the final event at the Legendary 100.
Over $3,000 was added to the UMSS purse in the form of money and product sponsorship. Every pay position in the feature race for the cars that were able to start (19 of the 22) ended with the number 15 which was Chad's car number throughout his racing career. Tony Norem earned the $600 Hard Charger Award in the Gale Patterson Memorial feature and actually was the leading money winner on the evening. An always smiling Tony Norem stated afterwards, "There was room for improvement." Indeed, two more positions. Tony and the Seidenkranz Brothers racing team were very pleased nonetheless. In a random draw following the drivers meeting, long-time Chad Patterson sponsor GRP Motorsports drew a number from a hat held by Chad Patterson which contained all father-son combos in the sport who were on hand at CLS for his dad's memorial race. GRP drew Derrik Lusk's name from the hat and Chad promptly headed over to their pits to present them with the special $200 Father/Son Award. Richert's feature win paid $1,015.
The UMSS utilized their familiar double round of qualifying races with Ultimate Sprint Heats won by Norem, Richert and Lusk. Two Challenge Races with a good share of the field in each one inverted from the heat race finishes saw Wade Nygaard and young Chase Viebrock earn the victories. Viebrock was making just his fourth career start in winged sprint car, but he does have two full seasons under his belt in the popular Traditional sprint car division. Following the double round of qualifiers, Lusk, Viebrock, Nygaard and Richert were the top four drivers in passing and finishing points. Viebrock drew the pole with Nygaard to his outside. Nygaard's night went downhill following his Challenge Race win when his team discovered a broken push rod. They worked feverishly to try and make repairs in time for the feature race, but they just simply did not have enough time and ultimately Nygaard had to scratch from a coveted starting spot. This moved Lusk up to the outside front row with Richert and Dave Glennon in row two.
Viebrock bolted into the lead running up on the cushion at both ends of the track and looked like he might be a candidate to pull off what some might call an upset. Richert worked his way past Lusk and followed for several laps. Nearing the halfway mark, Richert began closing in on Viebrock. On lap 15, Richert made what would be the winning pass coming off turn four for the lead. The only two cautions that slowed the pace came with 17 laps scored for a couple of spins in turn two. When the race resumed under green, Viebrock continued to fade back some with what was later reported to be a tire going down. Lusk suddenly was getting stronger and stronger and closed the gap on Richert in the waning laps. With traffic in front of the leaders, Lusk pulled up behind Richert on the final lap in a bid for the victory, but the three-time UMSS Champion Richert held off his attempt to kick off the season in fine fashion with a win.
Following the lead duo across the finish line in the 25 lap Gale Patterson Memorial feature was Tony Norem from his eighth starting spot, 2015 UMSS Champion Ryan Bowers and North Dakota racer Dave Glennon in the top five. 2009 UMSS Champion Leigh Thomas turned in a solid performance to finish sixth ahead of Viebrock, Dean Brown, Jamey Ogston and 2010 UMSS Champion Cody Hahn. In fact, all former UMSS Champions were on hand. Sixteen of the nineteen starters were still running at the finish with the top nine cars on the lead lap. Three cars were unable to start the feature. Along with Nygaard's misfortune, 2013 UMSS Champion Chris Graf blew an engine in hot laps and was done for the night while Bob McVitty reported no brakes following his Challenge Race and parked his car for the feature.
Chad Patterson and the UMSS wishes to thank the following for their contributions: Jon Hunter, GRP Motorsports, Kurt Gaber of Gaber Signs, Jared Goerges and Precision Tool Technologies, JT Auto Sales of Cumberland, WI, Minnesota Mafia, Hahn Motorsports, Ron Olson Motorsports, the Kouba family, Dale Streiff, Cedar Lake Speedway, Track Rat Photos, Meeks Video, Dairy Queen of New Richmond, WI, Star Prairie Sports Bar, Gibson Motorsports, Jeff Pellersels, Graf Motorsports, Atomic Sheet Metal, Brad Barickman, Ryan Bowers, the Patterson family and friends. Without their support, this event would not have reached the magnitude that it did. Also a special thanks to the racers and fans who came out and supported this event. Indeed, it was a very memorable and special evening for Chad and his family and turned out to be a wonderful evening of sprint car racing. If it's possible, I think somewhere up above Gale Patterson had a big smile on his face.
Next up for the UMSS winged sprint car division is a double header weekend on May 27-28 when the winged warriors make their first-ever appearance at the Red Cedar Speedway on the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend and return for their eighth show dating back to 2010 the next night at the Rice Lake Speedway. The Red Cedar purse features added money from Midwest Power Equipment and GRP Motorsports with $2,000 to win and $1,000 for second while Rice Lake pays $1,000 to win thanks to some help from GRP. Check out the schedule, results, points and other news for the UMSS winged sprint car division on our website at www.umsprints.com by clicking on the red logo or follow us on Facebook.
UMSS Race Results - Cedar Lake Speedway May 7, 2016 (Race #1)
GRP Motorsports Gale Patterson Memorial Feature (25 Laps): 1. 34DD-Jerry Richert Jr[3]; 2. 2-Derrik Lusk[2]; 3. B1ST-Tony Norem[8]; 4. 199-Ryan Bowers[5]; 5. 5G-Dave Glennon[4]; 6. 29-Leigh Thomas[6]; 7. 50-Chase Viebrock[1]; 8. 1D-Dean Brown[7]; 9. 03-Jamey Ogston[9]; 10. 34-Cody Hahn[10]; 11. 5-Anna Hippe[12]; 12. 1-Jeff Pellersels[11]; 13. N1-Ty Sampair[16]; 14. 91A-Reed Allex[13]; 15. 74-Roger McVitty[17]; 16. 85-Adam Tough[18]; 17. (DNF) 95-Kevin Bradwell[15]; 18. (DNF) 9-Jared Goerges[14]; 19. (DNF) 3-Tony Kaus[19]; DNS 9N-Wade Nygaard; DNS 7M-Bob McVitty; DNS 20G-Chris Graf
Lap Leaders: Viebrock 1-14, Richert 15-25. Cautions: (2) with 17 laps scored for 95 spin turn 2 and on restart for 85 spin turn 2. Tony Norem earned $600 Hard Charger Award. Derrik Lusk earned $200 Father/Son Award.
Precision Tool Challenge Race 1 (10 Laps): 1. 9N-Wade Nygaard[4]; 2. 03-Jamey Ogston[1]; 3. 29-Leigh Thomas[8]; 4. 5G-Dave Glennon[5]; 5. 34DD-Jerry Richert Jr[7]; 6. 5-Anna Hippe[2]; 7. N1-Ty Sampair[10]; 8. 91A-Reed Allex[3]; 9. 74-Roger McVitty[11]; 10. (DNF) 9-Jared Goerges[6]; 11. (DNF) 3-Tony Kaus[9]
Lap Leaders: Ogston 1-9, Nygaard 10-11. Cautions: (1) for 9 stopped turn 4 coming to white flag resulting in a green-white-checker finish.
Precision Tool Challenge Race 2 (10 Laps): 1. 50-Chase Viebrock[4]; 2. 1D-Dean Brown[2]; 3. 2-Derrik Lusk[6]; 4. 199-Ryan Bowers[3]; 5. 1-Jeff Pellersels[1]; 6. 34-Cody Hahn[5]; 7. B1ST-Tony Norem[7]; 8. 95-Kevin Bradwell[9]; 9. 7M-Bob McVitty[8]; 10. 85-Adam Tough[10]; DNS 20G-Chris Graf
Lap Leaders: Brown 1-3, Viebrock 4-10. No cautions.
Hoosier Racing Tire Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. B1ST-Tony Norem[1]; 2. 9-Jared Goerges[2]; 3. 34-Cody Hahn[3]; 4. 9N-Wade Nygaard[7]; 5. 1D-Dean Brown[4]; 6. 03-Jamey Ogston[5]; 7. 29-Leigh Thomas[6]; 8. N1-Ty Sampair[8]
Lap Leader: Norem 1-8. No cautions.
Track Rat Photos Heat 2 (7 Laps): 1. 34DD-Jerry Richert Jr[2]; 2. 50-Chase Viebrock[5]; 3. 91A-Reed Allex[1]; 4. 1-Jeff Pellersels[3]; 5. 7M-Bob McVitty[4]; 6. 85-Adam Tough[6]; DNS 20G-Chris Graf
Lap Leader: Richert 1-7. No cautions. Chris Graf scratched for the night with a blown engine in hot laps.
Meeks Video Heat 3 (7 Laps): 1. 2-Derrik Lusk[6]; 2. 5G-Dave Glennon[3]; 3. 199-Ryan Bowers[5]; 4. 5-Anna Hippe[1]; 5. 3-Tony Kaus[4]; 6. 95-Kevin Bradwell[2]; DNS 74-Roger McVitty
Lap Leader: Lusk 1-7. No cautions.
Rock Auto Victory Lane photo courtesy of Vince Peterson at Track Rat Photos.
Special thanks to: Andy Jones at JDI Signs & Graphics for the big check replica, Kurt Gaber at Gaber Signs for the Hard Charger and Feature Winner plaques, Vince Peterson at Track Rat Photos for his memorial photo, and Mark Meeks at Meeks Video for his video of the event.
Article Credit: Greg Parent, UMSS Media Director
