Flat Rock Speedway

Brian Bergakker won the Joy Fair 100 Outlaw Super Late Model race. Going into the tonight’s race, Bergakker, Harold Fair Jr and Justin Schroeder were tied for the most wins, each with two victories. After tonight’s win Bergakker has taken over the top spot by himself with three wins. The event has been run every year since 2012, except 2013 when it was combined with the Stan Yee Memorial when both were rained out earlier in the season and 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

 “Yeah, definitely got there faster than I expect it to. I was pretty consent to kind of ride around there for a while, just save tires and wait till the end. You know the seas kind of parted a couple of times, then got a couple of free spots and then the lap cars, they help you to help you pick people off and get to the front. So that's kind of what I did and when I got there was just kind of a waiting game, ride around and you know, I hit the fence on the backstretch wall stairs by myself with about 10 to go, so I got a little lazy I think. Yeah, I hit it pretty good. And I was just watching the lap car underneath me, it was about two car lengths in front of me, and I just lost track where I was. I had gotten the marbles and there's so many marbles out here, it just kind of took off and made me hit the fence pretty hard, and I had to straighten my helmet on going into three. That's how hard I hit it, said the driver of the 4J's Trucking, Michigan Marking, Earnest Performance, Senneker Performance, Irwin Engines Sweet Manufacturing, A&D Designs #12. This is probably the first one (race) we put on the calendar every year actually. We do really well here, we all like to come here. They treat us really good here and the race is fair, the tech is fair. And the reason is that you have three grooves out here so that just makes it even better. Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to the Stan Yee 150. I like those longer races for sure. I don't use it like the heat around that time of the year, but I like the longer races you know, and we built this car brand new from the ground up over the wintertime after last year. We crashed our car really hard in the Kalamazoo Klash and we started out really strong this year. We're gonna keep it going.”

 Brian Bergakker has racked up some impressive statistics at Flat Rock. Of the six Joy Fair 100s he’s competed in, half of them were wins: 2022, 2021, 2018, and two more top 10s, a sixth (2019) and fifth (2018) and his first Joy Fair was 15th. Overall, he’s raced at Flat Rock 14 times. He has won seven out of the last eight races he’s been in (a sixth at the Joy Fair 2019 race that Harold Fair Jr won). He has seven wins, two seconds, a fifth, sixth, and 10th (only the 15th and 21st were outside the top 10.). He’ll try for his fourth Stan Yee 150 race in July. (Out of 14 races at Flat Rock he has seven wins, 10 Top 5s, 11 Top 10s … also a 15th and a 21st.)

 Some more stats: He beat second place Eric Lee by 2.271 seconds according to RaceMonitor. He led a race high 54 laps.

Eric Lee has won the first two races of the OSLM class this season. Tonight he finished second, his best finish in the Joy Fair 100. “Yeah, we were really tight all day to day. We didn’t free up enough for the feature, but I can't complain has had a great year so far. Second place, you know, Brian's (Bergakker) always tough every time he comes here. He's top notch but okay, we got some work to do to get up to his speed. No, I'm happy with it, my finish. Car’s one piece. Good second place finish so I can't complain. But I gotta say hi to the Michigan Majors that came out to watch us tonight. So thanks for coming out guys. I also need to thank my main sponsors Lee Motorsports Inc. and Action Drywall and my crew my dad, Rob, Ron and Todd without them I would not be out here.”

 Scott Hantz finished third, a career best in the Joy Fair 100, “Well actually, I think I used it up (the car) the whole race. But yeah, it felt great to be back and then a lot of fun tonight. Well, we got something to work with now. Have to thank Pat Moran and Dick Barker for everything they've done.”

Connor Zbozien finished fourth also a career best (although it’s only his second one, he was fifth last year). Connor finished right behind teammate Scott Hantz. “Yeah, definitely every start saving 30 laps ago. That was like go time right there. Everyone started pulling away from me a little bit with 50 to go and I had to push a little harder but yeah, 30 laps to go.  I don't think I drove that hard in a while. The last few weeks we've been really struggling to get a handle on the car, but today we made some pretty big changes and some Hail Marys to go. And it definitely improved and made it work.

 Trevor Berry finish fifth in his first Flat Rock Speedway race driving Bobby Blount’s #16. “We'll take it as a learning experience. I enjoyed Flat Rock. It is a racy little place and I look forward to coming back. I appreciate you guys all coming out. Bobby gave me a good car … he's trying to get to know me, I'm trying to get to know them. We keep gaining on it, so we're gonna get better and be racing for wins here shortly. Bobby’s talked about coming up for the Stan Yee 150. He's given me the shots and I appreciate it. It's not a rent-a-ride program. He's just got faith in me, so that's cool. You don't see that much very often in the sport anymore.” Recently Trevor set the track record at Flat Rock’s sister track, Toledo, in a modified, the first time under 16 seconds.

Only four cars didn’t finish the race: Paul Pelletier led the first 45 laps before the car coasted to the pits. After the race he wasn’t sure if it was an ignition or engine problem. Three other cars didn’t see the checkered flag. Bryan Moore dropped out with damage from a crash, Jimmy Pankow retired overheating car and Guy Fire with mechanical problems (he took the green, dropped into the pits and the crew worked for about 20 laps, he tried racing but only completed a couple laps).

Rob Moore Jr, won the Street Stock A division feature, “Yeah, it feels real good. We had a really rough start to the year. Crazy mechanical failures we never would have thought of in a million years of having. The car was consistently good each week and it was on rails all day long

Absolutely horrible qualifying start but it ends up paying off starting on the front row. Double down had a crazy heat race and won that one and the feature is crazy. With no mirrors on our cars, you might think you're out there, but you never know. So, it's kind of hard to kind of just take it easy. You want to try to push it every lap and push it over the edge and it'd be too much so yeah, it was it was crazy.

I want to thank my sponsors, Ventcon, Sheet Metal Workers Local 80, Off Leash K-9 Training, In Memory of Casen John Hemphill, Moore Racing, Dow Engines, Goon Squad, North American Iron and Metal, Southgate Transmission. I would like to thank my dad, mom, sister, fiancé (Cierra), my grandparents, my uncle Tim, my aunt Amy, Wade, Judi, Bufford, and Chelsea. And the fans for coming out.”

Taylor Papineau won his second consecutive Street Stock B division feature. “Had another great week. And once again it’s all thanks to my crew!! My mom and dad Brenda and Dennis, my fiancé Caitlin, and of course the brains behind the operation, my brother Conor. We have one goal, and one dream, and that’s capturing the SS B main championship. Onto next week!!”

 Here’s an interesting Tidbit about Taylor. This was his fourth B division feature win. His first win was on May 15, 2021, and his second was May 29, 2021, his third was May 14, 2022, and his fourth win was May 28, 2022. He won on the same weekends last year and this year. I’ll have to look into whether anyone else has done that.

Scott Selmi had his first top five finish since a win in Aug. 2019.

Jim Froling made an infrequent start in the Street Stocks. His last race was Aug. 2, 2019. Since 2018, he’s raced seven races and all have been top five finishes except an 11th place finish in 2018.

 Paul Hahn drove Rob Liedel’s car to a eighth place finish. It’s his first top 10 since he returned last year after a long hiatus.

From Caleb Barron’s Facebook page: “Finally some improvement! The power steering system is fixed and working flawlessly, and we were pretty quick right out of the trailer. Having qualified 2nd was a bit of a surprise- not that we couldn't do it, just didn't think it would happen yet. Being that fast is bittersweet- great to be fast, but hardly ever will you catch an inversion of 2, and sure enough, with an inversion of 10, we were mired mid-pack (9th) for the feature and started in the last row for the heat race. Both races were uneventful, finishing 6th in the heat, and 15th in the feature. Caleb took a gamble of going to the outside in the feature, but there was no grip there. As he said after, "Had to try something." Agreed. Going to tweak a couple of things this week hoping to pick up that number 1 qualifying spot, even if just to say we did it! TEAM 103 is also very happy to welcome back Bezzo Dental this season. Located in Wyandotte, Dr. Bezzo and staff are just the nicest people to go see, even if the dentist "isn't your thing"! Give them a call and tell them TEAM 103 sent you! And as always, thank you for your support!”

 If you missed any of the racing you can find it here: www.youtube.com/c/MikeMiller28

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