By: Aspen Andre
(West Salem, WI – June 24, 2017) After a short rain that knocked qualifying and the fan photo session out of the schedule at the LaCrosse Speedway, Mother Nature decided to play nice for the rest of the evening so fans could get to watch some great short track racing.

Lonsdale, MN’s Nick Panitzke was the hard charger for the Tobacco Outlet Plus Grocery Late Model feature race tonight. Panitzke started 9th, but it only took 3 laps for him to be in the top three behind Cole Howland in first, and Tony Leis in second. It wouldn’t stay that way though…..on lap 18 Panitzke took the lead away from Tony Leis who had taken the lead away from Howland just 3 laps prior. Nick would have to fight through 3 cautions in the remaining 7 laps though to collect his third win of the season. In his post-race interview with track announcer Dan Deicher, Panitzke said “We just come out here to have fun and keep showing up if we are doing so. If it continues to go like this, we will be back for the whole season”. LaCrosse’s Brad Powell fought his way up through the traffic along with Panitzke from his 10th place start to finish second and Steve Carlson would finish third.

After taking an early race lead on lap 2 during the Dean’s Satellite Sportsmen feature by Bob Fort of Fountain City, he was involved in a caution on lap 13 forcing him to drop out of the race. Chaseburg’s Randy Humfeld took the top spot after the restart with 2 laps to go and battled off Brad Warthan from Sparta for the remaining 2 laps to take home the win. Humfeld has the most feature wins on the season so far winning 3 of the 5 races that have been held. Brad Warthan finished second, and New Prague, MN’s Adam Oxborough finished third.

The Auto Value Thunderstox saw Adam Moore from Sparta take the top spot during lap 5 of the feature. He would hold that position until the end of the race. Sparta’s Jason Bolster and Scott Mahlum finished second and third respectively.

Trempealeau’s Nate Towner led the whole 15 lap feature for the ANTS Complete Pest Control Hornets. Patrick Thicke from West Salem battled from his 14th place start to finish second and Jimmy Bjorkman from West Salem finished third.

Matt Moore of Kendall, WI took the lead on lap one of the Mini Van feature and fought off Mike Peters until there was only a half a lap to go when Peters took it away from him to win the race. Moore took second and Andy Moore took third.

The next event on the Speedway calendar is Friday, June 30th for the Star Spangled Spectacular where the TUNDRA Super Late Models, Midwest Truck Series, and the UMA Midwest Modifieds will be racing.

For more information please call the Speedway office at (608) 786-1525 or visit www.lacrossespeedway.com.

LaCrosse Fairgrounds Speedway is a proud NASCAR Hometrack, part of the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series – www.hometracks.nascar.com.

Click here for the full results.