Hello Race Fans, Families and friends of the USST,

Before we talk business, lets talk about racing and Wisconsin Dells on July 5th,2008.

The 2 feature day would leave a lot of  teams scratching their heads and wondering where this year's points battle will go. The day once again started with the young and talented drivers, Cole Howland, Collin Laursen, and Bobby Yonkee, setting the pace and leaving veteran drive and current point leader, John Wood, wondering how this day will end. John had a rough event at Milwaukee and brought his luck to the Dells Raceway Park, allowing the young driver to be on fire along with the rest of the field and our USST racers. Young Cole Howland had an awesome qualifying run and became the first driver other than Wood to capture fast time this season.  John Wood struggled in qualifying with mechanical issues, but still managed to be second quick.  He was followed by speedy Tom Roney, 13 year old Bobby Yonkee, veteran driver Steve Miller and the young and impressive Collin Laursen rounded out the top six. Newcomer Tom Meyers with his beautiful blue and grey Dodge truck, lead the field of 13 trucks to green flag in the first feature. Tom, who drove great all day and was able to found his way around the Dells raceway with style. Collin Laursen and Bobby Yonkee drove away from the field and had their own race starting. they were brought back to the field when the 77 Jasper truck driven by Jeff Babbs, coming out of turn 4, had mechanical issues and his truck rode the turn 4 wall and straightaway before coming down and taking Steve Miller and Tom Roney for a wild ride and left the truck out of contention for the day.  Roney was able to continue in the race and Miller had to retire to make repairs. Young Cole Howland with his unbelievably fast truck is looking to set a new pace. Cole has been fast for the last 3 race weekends and his hopes of a race win takes a turn for the worse. Between 3 and 4 Cole’s truck takes him for a wild ride hits turn 4 head on, finishing his day. While all of this is going on, Collin Laursen and John wood were battling for the lead.  On the restart, John Wood suffers a flat tire and give the lead back to Collin who would coast to his first feature victory in the United State Super Trucks.  With the win, Collin was able to close the point gap to leader John Wood. Tom Roney would finish second followed by Bobby Meyers, Bobby Yonkee and Ralph Cottone.  There was a little action after the 74 and 228 passed the finish line that would send the Yonkee 228 into the wall ending his night and putting him in a deeper hole in the points race.
 
With the temperature dropping, cooler weather prevailing and the super late models with their 100 lap feature, the track is setting up to be very fast. Bobby Yonkee, Jeff Babb and Cole Howland's trucks failed to make the second feature. John Wood and his amazing crew were able fix the #72 truck and young Collin Laursen was awaiting his chance to make it two in a row. Steve Miller fixes his truck, Ralph Cattone, Veteran ASA, MidAm and truck racer Butch Mierenfdorf, fast newcomer Tom Meyer, The three truck team of Nathaniel Anderson, subbing for Steve Hillary, Tim Anderson and Mike Tetzloff all take the track. This race proved to be unmistakeably one of the fastest races on a 1/3 mile track. With John Wood starting in the rear followed by the previous winner race winner Collin, it made for a great show.  Early in the feature, Collin tore his way through traffic to reach the top 3.  He was followed by the methodical John Wood to the front.  With the 2 driver battle for the  2nd spot, allowed Ton Roney to drive away from the field.  The battle for the 25 and the 72 would not end in either of their favor. Going into turn 1, they made contact and both spun.  The only damage was another flat tire for John Wood and Collin had to start at the rear of the field.  With only 4 laps left, John parked his 72 and the 25 was not able to pass anyone ending their days with a 9th and 8th place finishes.  Over shadowed in the results was the win by Roney and the career best finish for Tim Anderson, second.  He was followed by Ralph Cottone, Mierenfdorf, and Bobby Meyers.  After the rough night at DRP for John Wood, was still able to hold on to his points lead but it has shrunk to only 18 pts over Collin Laursen with Tom Roney lurking only 33 points behind.

Steve Hillary is taking his race suit off at the present time and filling the recently vacated Race Day Director’s position. Travis Leis, for personal reasons, will be stepping aside. Nicole Dannenberg will be taking over race day marketing, souvenirs; t-shirts etc and Maggie Howarth will be taking over race day registration. We are working to streamline race day registration, so please be on the lookout for an email from her. We are also missing some initial registration information from a few drivers that we hope to have completed by this weekend.

141 Speedway is our next race and will be spectacular show with as many as 12-15 trucks. After 141, we move to the Madison International Speedway on August 8th for the Kevin Fillner Memorial Race with Madison adding additional funds to the winner's purse. This announcement has just come from Dave Gruenberg at Madison. With 2008 almost 1/2 over, we are starting to look to next year, currently John Wood and Bob Yonkee are working on the 2009 schedule and payout schedule which will enhance our race series and help it grow.

Finally, the weekend of November 7th and 8th, there will be a race at Memphis Motor Speedway, a 3/4 mile track. Truck racers from around the country will be attending this race on this fast 3/4 mile track. More race specifics are in the works now and will be announced shortly. There is expected to be a large purse, and it keeps growing as sponsors are added. This truck race is centralized and will include racers from North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois and Wisconsin. The field will be started with as many as 42 trucks (Nascar style) and a consolation races will be run as needed. Registration is $100.00 Friday practice and qualifying, Saturday practice and feature with consolations as needed. Anyone registering early for this race will get their pictures in the USST color flyer.  More details will be released as they are finalized.

Hope to see everyone at 141
Robert Yonkee
USST North
Series Promoter