Shawano Speedway
WoO stars ready to revisit big Shawano oval
By Kevin Kovac
World of Outlaws Late Model Series
Billy Moyer heads to victory last year at Shawano, Wis. (Shawn Fredenberg)
Most of the stars of the World of Outlaws Late Model Series got their first taste of the sprawling Shawano Speedway last year.
What was the consensus opinion of the half-mile fairgrounds oval? The touring drivers seemed to enjoy their visit, and that’s why they’re looking forward to Wednesday's 50-lapper paying $10,000 to the winner.
“Shawano is probably one of the better bigger racetracks that we go to,” said tour regular Shane Clanton of Fayetteville, Ga., who finished fifth in last year’s race. “I like any racetrack you can race on, and Shawano is one of those places where you can race two- and three-wide in the feature.”
Last year’s WoO event — the tour’s first since 1989 at the tradition-laden Badger State track — was dominated by three-time series champion Billy Moyer of Batesville, Ark., who put on a clinic in lowering the track record in qualifying, winning a heat race and leading every lap of the main event without facing a serious threat. Behind Moyer, however, was plenty of close competition to keep the attention of the evening’s capacity crowd, including tense, race-long battles for second and fourth and a methodical march through the pack by 2006 World of Outlaws titlist Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y.
The war for the runner-up spot in 2010 was waged between Wisconsin drivers Brady Smith of Solon Springs and Jimmy Mars of Menomonie. Smith held on to take the bridesmaid position in what was his first-ever start at Shawano, while Mars, who won a major WISSOTA Late Model event at Shawano in 2008, settled for third.
Fourth place, meanwhile, was claimed by two-time defending WoO champion Josh Richards of Shinnston, W.Va., who slipped by Clanton for the spot on lap 41 with an outside move off the fourth corner. The race for position helped make both drivers fans of the Shawano layout.
“That’s a good place to race,” said Richards, who enters Wednesday’s action second in the ’11 WoO standings with four victories. “It’s smooth and fast, and you can pass if your car is working and you find the right line. We found a good line (to overtake Clanton last year) but there weren’t enough laps left (to advance further).”
“It raced real nice,” added Clanton, whose two top-five finishes in a struggle-filled ’11 season have come in the tour’s last four events. “The line was kind of right against the cushion in qualifying and then it widened out a little bit in the heats — and then it really widened out in the feature to where you could race all over it. It’s single-file down the straightaway because you’re running so fast and the draft takes effect there, but you can run from top-to-bottom in the corners.”
McCreadie was the Outlaw who put the biggest charge into Shawano’s fans last year. He discovered a unique outside-inside line around the track during the caution-free second half of the race, allowing him to pick up four spots over that stretch and net a respectable seventh-place finish after starting 16th in his Sweeteners Plus car.
The run gave McCreadie a good impression of Shawano, a challenging speedway he sees as a good proving ground for setups he would like to use in upcoming major events.
“I want to run good on hard tires and an icy-slick track — like Shawano — because that’s where the money’s won,” said McCreadie, alluding to prestigious high-dollar shows contested on slick ovals like the DIRTcar UMP-sanctioned World 100 on Sept. 9-10 at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. “Look at who won (at Shawano) last year. Look at how Moyer handled the place and what he’s done in his career.”
Of course, McCreadie, who plans to run a Victory Circle chassis that Moyer helped design on Wednesday , is hoping that he doesn’t have to work quite as hard to get to the front of the pack in his second appearance at Shawano. He needs a much better qualifying effort (he was 20th-fastest in time trials last year) to put himself in position to do more damage.
“After the race last year I said to Al (Stevens, then his chief mechanic), ‘I had to do that just to get to seventh. Just imagine if we could actually start up front with those guys and do what we did to put us over the top,’” said McCreadie, who is third in WoO standings and carries a streak of 12 consecutive top-10 finishes. “We’ve been in the same kind of rut lately (qualifying poorly, starting deep in the feature field and then rallying to finish well), but I feel like we’re getting close to putting it all together earlier in the night so we don’t have to work so hard at the end just to get up there into contention.
“I’ve been working with this car (he’s run the Victory Circle since mid-May) and I know in my heart it’s really good. We’re getting it balanced, and I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do with it (at Shawano).”
Several WoO regulars mention Shawano when asked for a list of favorite tracks they’ve visited on the tour, including 2008 champion Darrell Lanigan of Union, Ky. (the eighth-place finisher in last year’s event tends to prefer bigger ovals) and Clint Smith of Senoia, Ga., a one-time bullring lover who has come to appreciate the challenge of racing on a “big superspeedway-type racetrack” like Shawano.
“Earlier in my career I was always intimidated by the bigger places because, coming from the south, all of our tracks are 3/8-(mile) or smaller usually so I just never got used to running big tracks,” said Smith, who has entered all 302 WoO since the World Racing Group restarted the tour in 2004 following a 15-year hiatus. “But now, running the big tracks is easier than the small tracks for me. We’ve adapted our driving to the high speeds and the bigger tracks seem to suit our Rocket cars.
“I really like Shawano. It’s a super-good racetrack as far as passing, and it’s a super-nice facility too.”
Wednesday’s program, which also includes action for the IMCA stock cars, is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
Tickets are $25 for ages 12-and-over, with children 11-and-under free. Seats in rows 10-29 of the track’s covered grandstand can be reserved in advance by calling Shawano Speedway at (715) 526-7069 or (715) 584-0819. Pit passes are $40.
Shawano Speedway is located about 45 minutes northwest of Green Bay and three-and-a-half hours east of Cedar Lake Speedway, where the series heads for the 24th annual USA Nationals presented by U.S. Steel on Aug. 4-6.
