RICE LAKE, Wis. — For the first time in the Rice Lake Speedway’s 71-year history, the track presented a pair of forty-lap, $2,000-to-win Late Model events on the same night.
This was the result of a rainout partially through the Trackside Collectibles 40 scheduled to be held on May 13. With the Late Model feature not completed, it was added to the program for Saturday to go along with the Swant Graber 40, a program already on the schedule for the WISSOTA Late Models.
The two events would present divergent winners in victory lane. Sam Mars, a college student in only his third year of Late Model racing would win the Trackside Collectibles event.
Chad Mahder, now a seasoned veteran on the Late Model ranks who did his first Late Model racing back when Rice Lake ran the class regularly and he raced alongside his father and brother in the class, would get his first win at the track in fourteen years in the Swant Graber 40.