By: Paul Reichert
January 1, 2025
Change is in the cold and wintry air at Tomah-Sparta Speedway as new owners Tim and Amanda Brockhouse continue to make the track a showplace in Cranberry Country. One of those changes made by the Brockhouses was bringing back the Impact Survival Series and the Chill Chaser Enduro to kick off the brand new racing season on New Years’ Day. This race takes place no matter how warm or cold or snowy it is, and this year we finally got to witness a band of snow showers and wind make the race a bit more challenging. Davey Pennel was the driver to beat all race long until he broke a wheel hub with 12 laps remaining. Justin Schelitzche benefitted from Pennel’s sudden end to his day as the two-time series champion captured a long overdue victory in the Chill Chaser.
58 enduro racers took the green flag on a very challenging 200 lap journey around Tomah- Sparta Speedway, but the day hardly got started for a couple of well known competitors. Up and coming racer Karter Stark suffered a mechanical issue that forced him to pull into the pits on lap six. Matt Moore knows Tomah like the back of his hand but an issue with his left front ended his race after only 12 laps. Contact between Adam Hayden and Matt Hatterman sent Hatterman into the snowbank and perched his car’s rear on the wall protecting the front straight billboards to stop the proceedings after 23 laps. Tim Schmitz could not fire up his race car on the restart, but was able to steer it into the infield and not cause any problems for the field. Jesse Fischer, Zach Furber and Shawn Morris came together in turn one and Morris took a wild ride going into turn one to stop the racing on lap 27. Fischer got out of his car, but it was left in the middle of the race track as an obstacle going into turn one. Sean Eurick ran into the dirt bank in turn four hard to halt the racing on lap 41. Just before that incident happened, Davey Pennel powered underneath early race leader Todd Tacheny to take over the top spot on lap 40. While Fischer’s car was being avoided very well by the other drivers, Eurick’s car was not so lucky as Kyle Ansolabehere ran into it on lap 66 and suffered a flat tire as a result. A part of the field got stacked up by slower traffic as they approached Fischer’s disabled a couple times during the late stages of the first half of the race, but the faster runners were able to survive all of those messes and continue on.
The second half of the race was actually the start of the race for Daytomah 200 winner Rob Dubnecay, who was having major trouble trying to fire up at the start of the enduro. After spending just over half the race trying to fix the problem, Dubnecay was finally able to join the on-track action. Unfortunately he struggled to keep pace with the leaders all the way to the finish. Arik Tourville spun out on the front straight on lap 117 and ran into the TACU Credit Union Victory Lane signage, even taking out a piece of it at the bottom. Jason Witte collided with another vehicle and took a wild ride entering turn one with 50 laps to go to stop the action. This action took place right in front of leader Pennel. It is rare you see an engine say ‘goodnight’ during an enduro, but that is what happened to Brody Rivest with less than 20 laps left to run. The good news was that there were no fluids dumped on the track. Just when it looked like Pennel was unstoppable, his right front wheel hub broke and sent his tire in another direction with 14 laps to go. His car sat at the end of the back straight on the restart, while Justin Schelitzche eventually took over the lead a few laps later. Sophi Hornick and Travis Herber tangled in turn two with ten laps left, and Charles Vian, Jr. had nowhere to go and ran into Hornick’s car to stop the race one final time. Now there were obstacles entering and exiting turns one and two for the drivers to deal with. Schelitzche was running on rails over those last ten laps as the two-time ISS champion powered to his first ever Chill Chaser Enduro victory. Tanner Chadderton and Adam Moore ran steady races to come home with second and third place efforts. New Tomah-Sparta owner Tim Brockhouse even joined the fun running his first ever enduro race. An in-car camera was put into his vehicle so everyone on issracing.tv could see how he was doing. Despite making contact with a number of competitors during the 200 laps and having a great view of Witte’s wild ride in the second half, Brockhouse put in a very respectable showing to finish in ninth place.
Before we jump start the 2025 racing season at Tomah-Sparta Speedway on May 2, there will be a number of unique events happening. If you want to learn about a couple of different forms of racing, we will host a Bandolero Academy on April 19 followed up with a Legends University on April 20. The annual Test and Tune and Rookie Orientation to get ready for the new season happens on April 25. The Enduro Triple Crown returns for a second year with the Daytomah 200 kicking things off on April 26.
Call the track office at 608-461-1920, visit our website at tomahspartaspeedway.com and be sure to like the track’s Facebook page to learn more information about Tomah-Sparta Speedway and the 2025 schedule of events. Use these forms of contact to also find out more about all of those pre-season events leading up to Opening Night.
RESULTS
Impact Survival Series Chill Chaser Enduro (200 laps): 1. Justin Schelitzche 200, 2. Tanner Chadderdon 198, 3. Adam Moore 198, 4. Jack Barta 195, 5. Josh Gernentz 194, 6. Josh Bolden 194, 7. Nick Steffen 193, 8. Frank Calabrase 192, 9. Tim Brockhouse 191, 10. Terry Biddick 191, 11. Dan Van Pay 191, 12. Todd Tacheny 190, 13. Travis Volm 189, 14. Davey Pennel 188, 15. Zach Hanson 187, 16. Nate Coopman 186, 17. Charles Vian, Jr. 180, 18. Cody Bierman 177, 19. Scott Riedner 177, 20. Zach Liebsch 175, 21. Josh Klopotek 174, 22. Brody Rivest 173, 23. Jeremy Czarapata 168, 24. Robert Tate 161, 25. Jay Czarapata 159, 26. Travis Herber 154, 27. Louis Ansolabehere 152, 28. Dan Von Ruden 146, 29. Rachel Czarapata 144, 30. Jake Wickesberg 143, 31. Jason Witte 142, 32. Alex Liebsch 141, 33. Jason Bilek 139, 34. Sophi Hornick 130, 35. Jacob Hintze 116, 36. Shawn Kemnetz 106, 37. Arik Tourville 102, 38. Adam Hayden 91, 39. Rob Dubnecay 75, 40. Jeff Nooyen 68, 41. Kyle Ansolabehere 66, 42. Kyle Stark 58, 43. Luke Geisler 37, 44. Sean Eurick 34, 45. Jason Berke 34, 46. Chris Hallenbeck 31, 47. Jesse Fischer 25, 48. Isaac Bray 23, 49. Matt Hatterman 23, 50. Zach Furbur 22, 51. Tim Schmitz 22, 52. Shawn Morris 19, 53. Mike Krueger 13, 54. Stewart Hornick 13, 55. Matt Moore 12, 56. Karter Stark 5, 57. Matt Pennel 0, 58. Dean DeKeyser 0
 | ReplyForward |
