Exciting news as NSSR headed to a fantastic event of the NSSR Super Series in Chetek, WI at the Chetek Winterfest. National Straightline Snowmobile Racing held its second race of the NSSR 2020 Super Series for the “Fastest Show on Ice”. Temperatures ranged from about 13 degrees F in the early morning to 41 degrees F in the afternoon with a slight breeze from the South ranging from 5 to 8 mph during the day. The 1000 feet of shaved ice tracks, 3800 feet shaved with shutdown, were aimed to the East. A crosswind did not help for setting new records, but the competition was still fierce in most of the classes. The race track was under beautiful sunny skies all day and we did get the low visibility fog in early AM as the sun rose making it impossible to see the end of the track. Fortunately by race time at 9:30 or so, the fog lifted and Racing action began at 10AM.
NSSR worked with Mr. Rob Licht, Winterfest Chairman, of the Chetek Chamber of Commerce to get the event set to coincide with the City’s local events with Winterfest. It was also great to have the Kids Pro Ice Series set up next to NSSR so that spectators could watch some great oval track racing with the future of the sport! Fans and Spectators had the thrill of also watching nearly 700 passes down the 1000 foot straightaway!
Racer entries included over 75 entries on the Pro track and nearly 110 on the Radar Run track making a great number of entries at 185 hot rods. Great to see so many nice vintage sleds coming out of the garage to make some sweet passes on the pro track and the radar run track. Keep those gems coming!
What great weather to get the spectators to come out and watch some fast passes on the ice and the track held up well for racing action until mid-afternoon. The Chamber of Commerce had a record setting day for this event with over 1500 spectators on the ice! More important, the racers had a great time getting the sleds out and meeting up with fellow racers and spectators. The Radar Run track had some great hot rods including vintage sleds, many running near or above the 100 mph mark. The running of the local bikini run event at 1PM raised over Ten Thousand dollars to be contributed to a great cause to benefit Cancer Research. A great effort for some good fund raising and this is growing for the Chetek Chamber!
Our competitors continue to come from throughout the Midwest and included racers for North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. NSSR is the only ISR Affiliated Speed Run organization where you can set World Records on the 1000 foot shaved ice competition. World Records in the Stock and Pro Classes were again limited with the warmer weather and NSSR Racers posted only two World Records at this race.
Brice Konsela bumped his Vintage Stock F Record up to 70.78 mph. Keep up the great work Brice on these Polaris Hot Rods. Doyle Swift ran his 2017 Artic Cat ZR9000 to a fast pass of 146.81 mph in the early morning hour for a record breaking pass, but could not back it up later in the day to bump his record from 2019! Jake McCann blasted some great numbers from his Open Mod 1100 running an amazing 159.12 mph for the class win, and bumping close to the OM 1100 Schellbach record set in this class.
Top Speed of the Day had some blistering passes to light up the score board! It was great to see Chris Baynes run his Amped Up Artic Cat to a fast pass of 171.75 mph and Jason Houle on his Straightline Performance Yamaha posting a 171.23 mph pass on his Yamaha/Straightline hot rod.Glenn Stickels on the Martin Racing Busa Mod posted a fast pass at 168.09 mph.
Well, how about the fastest pass ever in the 1000 foot mark by none other than the Ensor/Warning/Hypersports machine know as Frozen Assets 2 bolstering a twin cylinder Suzuki with an STM CVT Clutch! The Warning Family/Hypersports Racing team pulled this monster sled back out and put the methanol to it with a good tune by the Wizard Glenn Hall just for this event! How about posting an Amazing 194.38 mph pass with a backup speed of 193.29 mph was Flyin Ryan Ensor on the Warning Family/Hypersports HRC 2 Machine in the TopGun Shootout to take Top Speed of the day and set a new World Record as the fastest sled ever in 1000 feet at NSSR or anywhere else for that matter! Congratulations ladies and gentlemen and great work by all involved on these Hot Rods!
All records require a run within 2% to back up their World Record run and over 1000 fans and race supporters were on hand to witness the racing throughout the day!
This NSSR Super Series event in Chetek was hosted by the Chetek Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with many of the local area businesses of the Chetek Area. Also, a big thanks to the City of Chetek, the Chetek Police Department, the Barron County Sheriff’s Office, and the Wisconsin DNR for their support and cooperation to make this event happen. I would also like to give a special thanks to Brit who brought the big snow cat to move the snow banks back to make even plowing the racetracks and parking areas possible, there is a lot of snow!
Ron and Stacy Bray of NSSR want to thank all who participated, supported, and sponsored our 2020 events for just another great year of speed run action. We would like to thank all our sponsors who make these races possible!
See www.racenssr.com and facebook under National Straightline Snowmobile Racing for more information on results and upcoming events.