RICE LAKE, Wis. — Chad Mahder has had good success over the years at the Rice Lake Speedway.
Despite the late models racing at the track on a very limited basis for a number of years, Mahder, following in the footsteps of his late father Duane, has always run well at Rice Lake and has gathered a number of feature wins and special event wins over the years.
After having a rocky run at another track on Friday night, Mahder and his crew went to work on Saturday to repair their MB chassis and get it ready for the Solution Heating and Cooling 30 Saturday night at the Rice Lake Speedway and their reward was a wire-to-wire victory in the main event.
Having earned the second highest total of passing points in heat race action, Mahder would start on the outside pole for the 30-lap feature race but with a quick burst of speed, he got the jump on polesitter John Kaanta and quickly went to work, opening up a several car length lead early.
While Kaanta slipped into second and tried to chase down Mahder, the driver on the move was Sam Mars. White hot lately with a couple of big wins in the last week, Mars didn’t have the best of heat races and started sixth in the feature race.
However, he quickly made up for that lackluster starting position, moving past Paul Niznik and then Rick Hanestad to take the third spot and he then began to chase the two leaders.
Mahder was dialed in on this night though, and as hard as Kaanta was pushing, he wasn’t able to shorten up the lead that Mahder held. The track was in flawless condition on this hot and humid night, but none of the drivers seemed to be able to find that groove that would speed them up to the point that they would catch anyone they were chasing. Mars was also pushing hard but he too couldn’t seem to close the gap that Kaanta had on him.
Mahder was locked in and there was no catching him as he continued to hold about a three second advantage over Kaanta. Mahder had one scary moment late in the race as while trying to overtake the slower car of Tony Bahr, they briefly got together both exiting turn two and again exiting turn four but Mahder was able to recover and not loose much time while Bahr headed for the infield.
The race would go nonstop and Mahder finished up with that three second lead over Kaanta with Mars settling for third. Hanestad and Niznik would complete the top five at the finish with only two starters not on the track at the finish.
Mahder earned $2,000 for his win in the Solution Heating and Cooling 30 which was his 12th career feature win in the late model class at Rice Lake.
Feature Finish (30 Laps)
1. 55C-Chad Mahder[2]; 2. 85-John Kaanta[1]; 3. 28-Sam Mars[6]; 4. 71H-Rick Hanestad[3]; 5. 42-Paul Niznik[4]; 6. 71JR-Buddy Hanestad[5]; 7. 68-Mike Prochnow[7]; 8. 51-Randy Gullixson[8]; 9. (DNF) 57-Tony Bahr[10]; 10. (DNF) 92-Aaron Wilson[9]