From Greg Parent
St. Croix Falls, MN — (July 12, 2013) — It was a memorable night for Woodbury, Minnesota driver Jeff “Race Doc” Pellersels, as he led all the way in the Traditional 40 at St. Croix Valley Speedway for the UMSS Traditional Sprint Car Series with a hearty car count record of seventeen non-winged sprints in the pits for the second annual event.
Pellersels grabbed the early lead from his outside front row starting spot over pole sitter Cam Schafer. There was really only one fast way around the little 1/4 mile oval on this breezy night, as the cushion up top provided the best avenue. Pellersels’ victory did not come without some drama though, as the race was only slowed twice under caution and on two occasions Pellersels found himself in a bit of trouble on the cushion. The first yellow waved when rookie Jake Kouba had a cooling hose blow off his car, dumping water on the track. On the restart, rookie racer Brian VanMeveren spun in turn two and collected Katrina Sautbine and Doug Taubert. All three cars were out of the race, as Tom Porter also pulled off under the caution. The race would then run 26 laps nonstop to the finish.
Pellersels maintained his lead throughout the race, but twice he bobbled on the cushion and momentarily lost the lead to Rob Caho, Jr. each time. Caho ran third in line until lap 25 when he got by Schafer for the runner-up spot. In the final 10 laps, Caho twice ducked under Pellersels exiting turn four only to see Race Doc return the favor on each occasion to lead at the line by a narrow margin. With a right front tire beginning to lose some air pressure in the final few laps, Pellersels was able to hold off Caho for the win. Caho, Schafer, rookie Mike Mueller and Johnny Parsons III completed the top five. Kevin Bradwell, Lucas Milz, Wes Hendrickson, in his series debut and Denny Stordahl finished the race. Jack Clark rounded out the top ten, although he did not finish. Sautbine, Taubert, Van Meveren, Porter and Kouba were the other DNFs. Joe Jesmore experienced engine issues in his heat race and did not start the feature while Ryan Olson had a radiator break in hot laps and ended up being scratched for the evening.