By Jeff Bonilla
9/15/10 – It was off to northern Wisconsin this past weekend for Bill Balog & the B Squared Motorsports team, as they were in action at the Superior Speedway on Friday & the Cedar Lake Speedway on Saturday.
With rain in the forecast, the decision was made to forgo qualifying on Friday and use the passing point system instead. Bill started from 3rd place in heat race #3 & needed to garner as many points as possible in the 10 lap race. At the drop of the green, Bill uncharacteristically fell to 5th place, & had his work cut out for him as the race wore on. He got around the 4th place machine early on & by the time the checkered flew; he worked his way back to the 3rd position, which was enough to earn a spot in the 30 lap feature.
He lined up inside row #4 to start the main event, after two false starts the race finally got underway. Bill began to work his way toward the front & he was soon battling with in the top 5. By the time a caution flew on lap 16, Bill had sliced & diced his way through traffic all the way up to 2nd place. On the ensuing restart, he drove under the race leader in turns 1&2 and had the lead going in to turn 3. He began to quickly open up a margin on 2nd place before a caution on lap 19 bunched the field back up. On this restart, Bill went to the high side of the track in turns 1&2 and began to pull away from the rest of the field. He would drive the last 11 laps flawless on the high side of the track & go on to score the IRA portion of the Northern Nationals. Bill now has 6 IRA feature wins thus far in 2010.
Saturday’s program at Cedar Lake started as scheduled with the Osborn & Son qualifying, Bill turned a lap of 11.355 seconds which was fast enough to claim 2nd quick out of the 36 cars present. By virtue of 2nd quick, Bill started 6th in heat race #2, & he would need a top 4 finish to transfer to the feature. He quickly got to work once the green flag flew & was inside the top 4 by the midway point of the race. With a couple cautions late in the race, Bill got the breaks he needed, & on the final one he grabbed the lead and would go on to collect the heat race win.
With the 3 pill drawn for the inversion, Bill started 6th in the 30 lap “Jerry Richert Memorial” feature event. The team hoped they made the right changes to the car to handle the ever changing surface. Once the race went green, Bill began to battle, with hopes of brining home a solid top 5 finish. As the race wore on, he had made his way in to the top 5, and soon was battling with in the top 3. With 2 late cautions, Bill thought he might have had something for the leaders, but in the end, he had to settle for 3rd. With this 3rd place finish, Bill & the team now have 19 straight top 5 feature finishes with the IRA.
This weekend the Race Gear X / Super Shox 17B team will take their 215 point lead to the Oshkosh Speedzone in Oshkosh, WI on Friday, September 17th & then the Plymouth Dirt Track in Plymouth, WI on Saturday, September 18th for the Frank Filskov Memorial.
To keep up on all the latest news regarding the team, be sure to visit the all new team website at www.b2motorsports.com. You can also become a fan of B Squared Motorsports on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bsquaredmotorsports
Sponsorship for the 2010 season comes from the following companies: Buesser Concrete, Hoeft Builders, Hepfner Racing Products & HRP Wings, DMI Race Products, XYZ Machine, Allstar Performance, K&N Engineering, Astro Titanium, Super Shox, BLZ, Rod End Supply, B Squared Visual Solutions, Weld Racing, Outerwears Inc, Race Gear X, Gleason Racing Equipment, Rhey Graphics, Gaerte Engines, Competition Driveline, Ringers Gloves, Plank Enterprises, and Buzz Signs & Graphics.