FALLON ­­— The heat of Saturday evening set the state for a night of hard racing at Rattlesnake Raceway.

Racing is all about challenges and one IMCA driver has had his share over the past couple of months. On this night, however, after all the problems were fixed, one driver scored his first ever IMCA Modified victory.

“It was crazy. I’ve been working so hard this year and will all the junky luck I’ve had, that was just phenomenal to pull off my first IMCA Modified win,” a happy Wade Lumsden said back in the pits. “We couldn’t fix the front brakes so we did have them, so we were running on a lot of luck.”

The evening began badly when his shift linkage wouldn’t work and he had to drop out of the heat race. Going into the feature he just hoped everything would work.

Starting from the pole, Lumsden took the point and soon had Darren Manning on his back bumper. From that point on, it was a chase to the finish.

Lap after lap, they tore around the track with Lumsden having an advantage then Manning would reel him in. Then a late-race caution erased any advantage Lumsden had.

When the green waved again, he and Manning took off and resumed their duel. A couple of times, as they exited Turn 4, Manning would almost get completely beside Lumsden, who managed to hold him off.

When the dust settled, Lumsden gave thanks to his sponsors, United Auto Sales, TJDJ, We’ll Get That Catering, Lumsden Motorsports then he added special thanks to his dad, Chris Lumsden and Joe Torres.

The Rat Mod race was a runaway, at least as far as winner Scott Hammond was concerned. Behind him Mark Rio was trying to hold off a determined Steve Young, who was giving him a run for his money.

In the end the battle for second was settled when Young spun either after or just before one of the rear leaf springs on his racer came loose. Up front Scott Hammond roared across the finish line to take the victory.

Back in the pits Hammond said, “It was a rough track but I’m going to stop complaining about it because my car seems to handle really on these rough tracks. I was kind of an easy, casual night out there and I was trying some new things. But, I have to thank Chris Jimenez, my pit guy last year and this year and I couldn’t do without him”

The Gen-X feature was kind of a runaway for Shawn “Mr. Rabbit,” Hartzell. While Al Bishop tried his best he just couldn’t close the gap to the leader and had to settle for the runner-up spot behind Hartzell.

The track was actually pretty good, pretty sticky, a little rough but it was fun,” winner Hartzell said later. “The car ran fantastic and I don’t think I’ll have to do anything to it for the next race.

The biggest field of the evening was in the Hobby Stock division. When the green waved Sandy Clark took off and left everyone in her dust. Behind her a battle for second was shaping up, as it became a six-way duel.

By lap 9, Clark had an almost straight lead on everyone but on the very next circuit there was a melee in Turn 4 that collected several cars. Chris Neal’s car had its left rear wheel ripped off while Pete Baglin’s car may have had a radiator damaged as he left a streak of moisture around the entire track.

Now, Clark had lost her advantage but on the restart she was holding off her challengers. One of them was Pete Olsen, who started at the back and had been carving his way toward the front.

Olsen also had his hands full, as Aaron Benham also wanted second and a shot at the leader. But about eight laps later Olsen found his groove and used an inside pass to grab the point.

A short time after that Royce Goetz spun bringing out another caution that bunched up the field. With nine to go, Olsen jumped into the lead and let the others fight for second.

By now Rocky Goetz had taken second and was trying his best to challenge Olsen. Behind them Clark was doing a good job of holding off Benham.

The race itself ended with a bang.

After most of the field had taken the white flag, signaling one lap to go, Royce Goetz was heading down the back straight when something might have broken in his car and he went up the Turn 3 banking and slammed into the wall.

Seeing this the flagman put out the red, stopping the action while officials and the emergency crew rushed to his aid. Fortunately Goetz was uninjured in the wicked looking crash but the officials had a dilemma.

With some of the cars, but not all, having taken the white flag the race was technically ended. However some felt the drivers should have had at least one more racing lap.

This boiled over in the pits but cooler heads prevailed and apparently the finish will be discussed at the board’s next meeting.

Back in the pits a delighted Olsen was enjoying his victory and said, “ It was a fun race, the track was a little rough but there was a lot of tack there, specially after a yellow as your tires cool down a bit. Anytime you go from the back to the front in less than 30 laps, that’s a good race.”

Then he gave thanks to sponsors Hillside Dairy and Sage Hill Dairy as well as to his dad and uncles for getting him into racing.

The night itself began on a somber note as the Rattlesnake and Amsoil Outlaw Kart family remembered one of their own. This past Wednesday Bud Rogers, whose son Nick now races a 500cc kart, passed away.

After the Rogers family assembled beside the front straight all the Outlaw Karts took a lap to honor the elder Rogers. Then his son, holding a checkered flag, took another lap to honor his father.

Later he would win his race.

Mr. Rogers’s funeral is slated for Wednesday at the Veteran’s Cemetery in Fernley.

OTHER RACING NEWS

•This week’s racing buffet offers a varied menu.

Early Saturday morning the Northern Nevada Kart Club hosts its next points race with the action beginning, after practice, around 10 a.m. Later that afternoon, around 3 p.m. Exit 28’s motocross track opens for practice with racing beginning at 5 p.m. as the track hosts the final round of its “Back to Black,” summer series.

Then at 6 p.m. 95A Speedway in Fernley stages another of its regular races featuring both the IMCA Modifieds and the Dwarf Cars for the DART series. An hour later, at 7 p.m. Lovelock Speedway stages its next-to-last series race featuring IMCA and B Modifieds.

•Two Nevada drivers competed at Watkins Glen NASCAR races this weekend. On Saturday Nationwide event Kyle Busch started fifth and finished sixth.

In Sunday’s Sprint Cup event Kyle started second and ended up seventh while older brother Kurt Busch didn’t do so well starting 27th and finishing 31st.

•Two weeks ago, on July 29, the local off-road community lost William “Bill” Lott, who passed away. He owned Fibercraft and had been involved in off-road racing for the past 35 years and was a supporter of the VORRA series.

We here at the Daily Sparks Tribune wish to offer our condolences both to his personal and extended racing family. He will be missed.

RESULTS

Rattlesnake Raceway - Aug. 11

IMCA Modifieds:

Heat Winner - Paris Archie

Main (15 Laps) - Wade Lumsden, 2. Darren Manning, 3. Billy Anderson, 4. Paris Archie

Rat Modifieds:

Heat Winner - Scott Hammond

Main - 1. Scott Hammond, 2. Mark Rios, 3. Steve Young

Hobby Stocks:

Heat Winners - #1 Royce Goetz, #2 Pete Olsen

Main - 1. Pete Olsen, 2. Rocky Goetz, 3. Sandy Clark, 4. Aaron Benham, 5. Ronny Goetz Jr.

Gen-X:

Heat Winner - Shawn Hartzell

Main - 1. Shawn Hartzell, 2. Al Bishop, 3. Christy Rasmussen

Outlaw Karts Winners:

500cc - Nick Rogers

250cc - Samantha Schultz

Box Stock Intermediate - Jacob Dias

Box Stock - Steven Schroetlin

Beginner - unlisted