The final night of the annual Rumble at Brown County Speedway Saturday night took place among thunder, lightning and light rain before the final checkered flags dropped.
Mike Stearns of Aberdeen captured the $5,000 to win Late Model feature, while Justin Vogel of Brooten, Minn., won the $1,000 to win Street Stock main event.
Stearns tied to keep calm, despite racing for a large payout.
“Kind of got to look at it as just another race and not over-psych yourself. I’m still pretty new to Late Model racing and racing for five grand is the first time I’ve ever done it,” Stearns said. “It’s on your mind. You can’t get it off your mind but you just gotta put it behind you when the green flag drops and just worry about doing your job.”
Stearns started the race in the pole position and never lost his spot maintaining the lead through all 35 laps. A key part in that was the path along the high side of the track.
“I started off on the bottom there and then I was kind of eyeballing that top, and it looked like it was cleaning up a little bit, like there were some guys up there,” Stearns said. “Usually here, if you can get up top and get that momentum going, it’s hard to pass you. So, after one of them restarts, I’m like I just gotta go up there and whale around there, and see if I can make it happen.”
After two yellow flags in the first couple laps, the race went pretty smoothly allowing Stearns to gain a healthy lead on the field. However, a yellow on lap 16 closed the competition again. For Stearns, nothing changed.
“I honestly didn’t know that I had a huge lead. You’re just going hard. The cars work better when you drive them hard. If you start laying up a little bit, then they get tight on you, and it just doesn’t work like it’s supposed to,” Stearns said. “You just gotta be smart about it and you don’t wanna take any unnecessary chances.”
With no caution flags between laps 33 and 16, Stearns was able to use some of the lapped cars to his advantage to further his lead on the cars behind him.
“When you get to lap cars, if they’re all running the bottom or the middle, then it’s a good deal,” Stearns said. “You can use the lap cars almost as picks and just keep them underneath you. Then guys can’t pass you.”
The final yellow happened with five laps remaining just as Stearns seemed primed to seal the deal. With all the cars close for the final stretch, Kent Arment tried to shoot low to make a pass on Stearns, but it didn’t faze him.
“I saw him there a little bit, but I got a really good run on that restart. I hit it probably as good as I ever did and then (beat) him down the back straight away, and then when I got into three and got rotated a little bit, I could still see him,” Stearns said. “Then I got a really good run off of four, so I had one really good lap that probably put enough distance on there to where I felt good about it.”
With no doubt about it in the final lap, Stearns knew he just got $5,000 richer. “It’s awsome. It’s the biggest win of my career,” Stearns said. “That’ huge for our little racing team.”
While Vogel started on the pole position in the Street Stock feature and never trailed in the 25-lap race, he experienced several anxious moments on the way to the win.
“I got a good starting position. I don’t know how the rest of the track was. I never left the bottom,” Vogel said. “I was nervous. I could hear Maria (Broksieck of Goodwin) and Kyle (Dykhoff of Starbuck, Minn.) getting closer and closer to me when they’d read the lineups, and I was waiting for one of them to come around me on the top.”
What really was tough on Vogel was a multi-car pile-up that brought out a red flag and caused a lengthy delay.
“I started thinking about stuff, and then I was just like alright, I got to stop thinking, I got to stop thinking,” Vogel said. “I tried to get a song in my head and I couldn’t do that. And then I actually took a little nap while I was sitting there waiting. I just dozed off for a little bit. I don’t know what it is. I can always nap in a race car for some reason.”
When the race resumed with five laps remaining, Vogel was able to maintain his focus and his path on the track en route to the victory.
“There’s enough traction where if you screw it up you could kind of save yourself,” Vogel said, “but there’s a couple tricky little slick spots and it took about a lap or two to kind of get it back into a rhythm.”
Vogel doesn’t make the trek to Aberdeen very often, but enjoys his trip to the Hub City every time.
“If it ever plays out where I can make it here, I’ll come here,” Vogel said. “I love this place. The fans are great, the people in town are always awesome, and it’s a fun race track to race at.”
Racing continues at 7 p.m. Friday.
To see Saturday’s complete results, click on the following link:
