Sun Prairie, WI August 14th, 2022–Jake Neuman may be a National Midget Champion, but the stars of the Advanced Fastening Supply Badger Midgets have made the New Berlin, IL native work for every pass, podium and win with the series in 2022. Sunday night’s Corn Fest A Main was no exception.
The 22-car starting field rolled to the green with BMARA Point Leader Kyle Stark on the pole and Neuman to his outside. The latter grabbed the top spot off of turn two, while Stark held onto 2nd over Brandon Waelti and Adam Taylor. Coming into turn one on lap two, Stark, Taylor, Waelti and Sunday’s Schoenfeld Headers Quick Time award winner Zach Boden went nearly four-wide through the first set of turns, with Stark eventually giving way to all three drivers and falling back to 5th. Boden and Stark are currently locked in an epic duel for the BMARA Point Lead and every position between those two drivers is incredibly important.
Waelti and Taylor began to track down Neuman at the front of the field as the RAB Racing #57A fell into the clutches of Waelti’s #3B on lap six. Waelti powered around the current IRA Sprints Rookie of the Year leader and grabbed the lead entering turn one. Meanwhile, Neuman’s RAB Racing teammate Jack Routson had moved his #57B machine up into the 5th spot, powering underneath Stark in a decisive move.
Back up front, Waelti started to extend his advantage while Neuman came under fire from Taylor for 2nd. The Fusion Engineering #5X slid up across the track in front of Neuman, and at that exact moment, Waelti’s #3B began to slow on the back stretch and the Sun Prairie native was forced to retire his car from the lead. The unfortunate mechanical issue for Waelti handed the lead over to Taylor and the race remained under green flag conditions. Then, something appeared to be amiss on the #57A as Neuman slowed momentarily off of turn two, but he appeared to regain power down the back stretch and continued his pursuit of Taylor for the lead.
While the chase for the lead ensued, Nick Baran began to make his presence known in the Top 10. The 20th place starting #11N car worked the ultra-high line with all four tires in the loose dirt above the cushion at multiple different moments during the second half of the Advanced Fastening Supply 25 Lap Feature. Baran worked his way around Jeff Zelinski and started to pressure Doerr for the seventh spot, while the battle for the lead started to heat up once again.
As the race reached the halfway point, Taylor and Neuman began to encounter lapped traffic with cars battling all over the track in front of the #5X and the #57A. Just when things looked to get even more exciting, the lone caution of the race came out for a spun Kluever in turn four. On the ensuing restart, an absolute dogfight for the lead began with Neuman ducking low on Taylore to take the lead with 11 laps remaining, but Taylor was not to be outdone. The #5X stayed glued to Neuman’s tail tank over the next few circuits, The Wheatefield, IN driver stayed patient and focused as the race neared its conclusion, and on the white flag lap, Taylor let it fly.
The #5X got an incredible drive off of turn two and sent it to the low side in turn three, drawing even with Neuman at the exit of turn four. Neuman powered off of the cushion and Taylor tried to get his car pointed towards the finish line, but it was too little, too late. Neuman crossed the finish line to take his third Badger Midget win of 2022 with Taylor coming in an extremely close 2nd. Routson, Boden and Doerr rounded out the Top 5.
“I can’t Marty Howard, AFS and everyone that helps Bill [Ecker] out enough.” Neuman said in Victory Lane. “Adam [Taylor] got around me and I had put a different steering wheel on before the feature and my fingers kept hitting the dash. I actually had to bend the wheel up a little bit to be able to drive it the last couple laps. It’s always fun racing with Adam. He’s driven one of our midgets before and he’s really good. He’ll get a lot more of these wins.”
Neuman also finished a strong 3rd with the Bumper to Bumper IRA Sprints in their feature immediately after the AFS Badger Midget A Main concluded.
Sunday’s Schoenfeld QuickTime Award went to Zach Boden, Auto Meter Heat 1 was won by Matt Rechek, Adam Taylor took the checkered flag in Simpson Race Products Heat 2 and Derek Doerr took home Behling Race Products Heat 3. The Madison Extinguisher Service Non-Qualifier was won by Charles Rufi and the High Performance Lubricants B Main went to Kevin Douglas. Nick Baran earned the Advanced Racing Suspensions Hard Charger Award in the A Mainwith a 20th to 7th charge. Adam Taylor went home with the Howard Law Cash Draw, and the Oliver Motors Last Place Bonus went to Brandon Waelti. The Cartopia “Hard Luck” Award went to Trey Weishoff.
Stark kept his lead at the top of the standings, but Boden closed in to within 48 points with just four races remaining in 2022. Todd Kluever, RJ Corson and Aaron Muhle round out the top 5 point scorers.
The Advanced Fastening Supply Badger Midgets return this Saturday at Wilmot Raceway for an all open-wheel special along with the Bumper to Bumper IRA Sprints and MSA 360 Sprints. Tickets for Saturday’s race will be available at the track or in advance through My Race Pass and the Wilmot Raceway website, and FloRacing will provide live coverage on Saturday if you are unable to attend in person.
Angell Park Speedway “Corn Fest” Results 8/21/22
A Feature 25 Laps | 00:09:16.279 | Advance Fastening Supply
- 57-Jake Neuman[2]; 2. 5X-Adam Taylor[3]; 3. 57B-Jack Routson[7]; 4. 51-Zach Boden[6]; 5. 20D-Derek Doerr[9]; 6. 15Z-Jeff Zelinski[10]; 7. 11N-Nick Baran[20]; 8. 38-Matt Rechek[11]; 9. 2-Kyle Stark[1]; 10. 44-Lamont Critchett[17]; 11. 9K-Bryon Walters[13]; 12. 24M-Aaron Muhle[8]; 13. 87-Jake Dohner[19]; 14. 77-Jack Vanderboom[18]; 15. 9S-Mike Stroik[21]; 16. 55-Todd Kluever[5]; 17. 5K-Kevin Douglas[16]; 18. 15C-RJ Corson[14]; 19. 56-Charles Rufi[22]; 20. 21K-Kurt Mayhew[12]; 21. 28-Jim Fuerst[15]; 22. 3B-Brandon Waelti[4]
B Feature 10 Laps | 00:02:46.791
- 5K-Kevin Douglas[4]; 2. 44-Lamont Critchett[6]; 3. 77-Jack Vanderboom[3]; 4. 87-Jake Dohner[2]; 5. 11N-Nick Baran[8]; 6. 9S-Mike Stroik[7]; 7. 56-Charles Rufi[10]; 8. 6-Jeremy Douglas[1]; 9. 59-Kyle Koch[5]; 10. 40JR-Dave Collins Jr[12]; 11. 00-John Heitzman[9]; 12. 29-Harrison Kleven[11]; 13. 4-Brad Hensen[14]; 14. 39-Dwight Stefan[15]; 15. (DNS) 31-Shay Sassano
Non-Qualifier 8 Laps | 00:02:15.617 | Madison Extinguisher Service
- 56-Charles Rufi[7]; 2. 29-Harrison Kleven[4]; 3. 40JR-Dave Collins Jr[6]; 4. 45KW-Trey Weishoff[8]; 5. 4-Brad Hensen[3]; 6. 39-Dwight Stefan[1]; 7. 3A-Chris Adrien[2]; 8. (DNF) 31-Shay Sassano[5]
Behling Heat Race 3 8 Laps | Behling
- 20D-Derek Doerr[4]; 2. 3B-Brandon Waelti[7]; 3. 51-Zach Boden[8]; 4. 57B-Jack Routson[5]; 5. 2-Kyle Stark[6]; 6. 6-Jeremy Douglas[1]; 7. 5K-Kevin Douglas[3]; 8. 9S-Mike Stroik[2]
Simpson Race Products Heat 2 8 Laps | 00:02:07.431 | Simpson Race Products
- 5X-Adam Taylor[7]; 2. 15Z-Jeff Zelinski[4]; 3. 55-Todd Kluever[8]; 4. 15C-RJ Corson[2]; 5. 21K-Kurt Mayhew[3]; 6. 87-Jake Dohner[5]; 7. 59-Kyle Koch[1]; 8. (DNF) 11N-Nick Baran[6]
Auto Meter Heat 1 8 Laps | 00:02:11.177 | Auto Meter
- 38-Matt Rechek[4]; 2. 57-Jake Neuman[7]; 3. 9K-Bryon Walters[3]; 4. 28-Jim Fuerst[2]; 5. 24M-Aaron Muhle[5]; 6. 77-Jack Vanderboom[6]; 7. 44-Lamont Critchett[8]; 8. 00-John Heitzman[1]
Schoenfeld Headers Qualifying 3 Laps | 00:00:42.000 | Schoenfeld Headers
- 51-Zach Boden, 00:15.596[28]; 2. 55-Todd Kluever, 00:15.705[7]; 3. 44-Lamont Critchett, 00:15.765[31]; 4. 3B-Brandon Waelti, 00:15.778[22]; 5. 5X-Adam Taylor, 00:15.821[3]; 6. 57-Jake Neuman, 00:15.920[6]; 7. 2-Kyle Stark, 00:15.935[5]; 8. 11N-Nick Baran, 00:15.940[14]; 9. 77-Jack Vanderboom, 00:16.025[1]; 10. 57B-Jack Routson, 00:16.055[15]; 11. 87-Jake Dohner, 00:16.065[12]; 12. 24M-Aaron Muhle, 00:16.066[20]; 13. 20D-Derek Doerr, 00:16.068[25]; 14. 15Z-Jeff Zelinski, 00:16.083[18]; 15. 38-Matt Rechek, 00:16.095[26]; 16. 5K-Kevin Douglas, 00:16.116[16]; 17. 21K-Kurt Mayhew, 00:16.336[11]; 18. 9K-Bryon Walters, 00:16.401[23]; 19. 9S-Mike Stroik, 00:16.487[8]; 20. 15C-RJ Corson, 00:16.491[29]; 21. 28-Jim Fuerst, 00:16.534[13]; 22. 6-Jeremy Douglas, 00:16.563[19]; 23. 59-Kyle Koch, 00:16.588[24]; 24. 00-John Heitzman, 00:16.672[32]; 25. 56-Charles Rufi, 00:16.687[9]; 26. 40JR-Dave Collins Jr, 00:16.880[27]; 27. 31-Shay Sassano, 00:16.902[17]; 28. 29-Harrison Kleven, 00:17.240[30]; 29. 4-Brad Hensen, 00:17.426[2]; 30. 3A-Chris Adrien, 00:17.778[10]; 31. 39-Dwight Stefan, 00:19.272[21]; 32. 45KW-Trey Weishoff, 00:19.272[4]