SLINGER, Wis. — Brad Mueller cherishes each victory he gets at any race track and he’s done quite a bit of that lately.
One victory that he’ll likely remember the most, long after he’s done racing, won’t be from the race track.
On Sunday afternoon, mere hours before the 24th running of the Alan Kulwicki Memorial at Slinger Super Speedway, Mueller watched his oldest daughter, Julia, walk across the stage and graduate from Sheboygan Falls High School.
When Julia was 13 months old, she was adopted by Mueller’s family and was brought to the U.S. from Russia.
“It was awesome; it was very awesome,” Mueller said of watching Julia graduate from high school. “To see her accomplish so much like that, knowing where she came from. We adopted her from Russia back when she was 13 months old to the young woman she is today is a great feeling.”
Mueller capped the memorable day with a victory in the Alan Kulwicki Memorial, his second triumph in the annual celebration of the former NASCAR and Slinger champion. Mueller also won the Alan Kulwicki Memorial in 2003. The race was rained out in 2007, ’11 and ’12.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee engineering professor Jean Optiz waved the green flag to start the 75-lap feature. Kulwicki graduated from UWM with a degree in engineering.
“It’s a prestigious race,” Mueller said, adding, “to win at Slinger Speedway, you got your program together if you’re winning here.”
Brad Keith finished second, followed by Nick Wagner, Chris Blawat and RJ Braun to round out the top five.
“That old guy can still wheel pretty damn good I’ll tell ya,” Keith said of Mueller. “Last year about halfway through the year we clicked on some stuff and it’s taken us a little bit this year to get back to it. Tonight’s a good testament.”
For Braun, it was his first top-five finish in only his third career super late model feature start. And it was Wagner’s best career finish in a super late model, a division he’s raced full-time in since 2012.
“Finally got something to show for all the hard work we put in,” Wagner said.
Mueller is on a hot streak.
He’s won back-to-back features at Slinger, while setting fast time in both weeks. He also won the dirt late model feature at Plymouth (Wis.) Dirt Track on Saturday. It is the second time Mueller has won dirt and asphalt feature races in the same weekend, also doing the same feat at the same two tracks in 2015.
In addition, Mueller got a firm hold of the championship lead as contenders Steve Apel and Alex Prunty posted DNFs. Mueller leads by 64 points over Apel. But, Mueller said, it’s too early to think about championship positioning.
“You don’t start thinking at all,” Mueller said. “All of a sudden I could happen what happened on the dirt where I got wrecked three weeks in a row.”
He added, “Always count your blessings whenever you have a great few weeks, always remember that bad weeks can happen.”
One thing he has been thinking about for a while is the elusive Slinger Nationals title. Mueller has been trying to win the Slinger Nationals for more than 15 years. Is 2019 his year?
It’d be hard to bet against the three-time track champion right now, who led 69 laps and finished third at last year’s Nationals.
“We have a car that’s capable of winning it every year we come here,” Mueller said. “It’s just about survival and how the cards fall at the end of the race.”
Also picking up feature wins were Matt Rose (American Super Cup), Jacob Nottestad (limited late model), Ryan Gutknecht (sportsman), Matt Urban (Slinger Bees) and Rick Bruskiewicz (Figure 8).