For Immediate Release
NSSR Chetek, WI News – February 23, 2019
“CHETEK WINTERFEST”
Exciting news as NSSR headed to a fantastic event of the NSSR Super Series in Chetek, WI at the Chetek Winterfest. National Straightline Snowmobile Racing held its third race of the NSSR 2019 Super Series for the “Fastest Show on Ice”. Temperatures ranged from about 5 degrees F in the early morning to 20 degrees F in the afternoon with a stiff breeze from the Southeast ranging from 5 to 12 mph during the day. The 1000 feet of shaved ice tracks, 3800 feet shaved with shutdown, were aimed to the East, so most of the racers experienced a headwind. The headwind made it tough for setting new records, but the competition was still fierce in some of the classes. The race track was under mostly cloudy skies all day and we did get the window in the snow squalls to get this event done, with the snow stopping about 9AM and then the blizzard firing up about 8PM after all the racing was complete, yes we did get lucky.
NSSR worked with Mr. Rob Licht, Winterfest Chairman, and the Chetek Chamber of Commerce to get the event set to coincide with the City’s local events with Winterfest. Fans and Spectators had the thrill of also watching 7 Hot Rods blistering the 1000 foot timers at 150 mph or more!
Racer entries included 65 entries on the Pro track and nearly 85 on the Radar Run track making a great number of entries at 150 hot rods and just over 600 safe passes between the two shaved ice tracks. Great to see so many nice vintage sleds coming out of the garage to make some sweet passes on the pro track and the radar run track. Keep those gems coming!
It was great weather to get the spectators out to watch some fast passes on the ice and the track held up well for racing action until mid-afternoon. More important, the racers had a great time getting the sleds out and meeting up with fellow racers and spectators. The Radar Run track had some great hot rods including vintage sleds, many running near or above the 100 mph mark. The running of the local bikini run event at 1PM raised nearly Six Thousand dollars to be contributed to the Pink Ribbon Coalition and a great cause. A great effort for some good fund raising and this is growing for the Chetek Chamber!
Our competitors continue to come from throughout the Midwest and included racers for North Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan. NSSR is the only ISR Affiliated Speed Run organization where you can set World Records on the 1000 foot shaved ice competition. World Records in the Stock and Pro Classes were again limited with the stiff quartering headwind to battle and NSSR Racers posted only three World Records at this race.
The Vintage classes did not care about the headwind and went to add three new records in these classes. Brice Konsela bumped his Vintage Stock E record up to 75.92 mph! Brice Konsela then came out and bumped the Vintage Stock F Record up to 70.36 mph. Keep up the great work Brice on these Polaris Hot Rods. In the Vintage Mod Stock 300 Class Erik Fagerlin posted a great speed of 80.48 mph on his 1976 Yamaha.
Top Speed of the Day had some blistering passes to light up the score board! It was great to see Corey Sullivan run his Amped Up Artic Cat to a fast pass of 173.27 mph and Jason Houle on his Straightline Performance Yamaha post a 172.34 mph pass on his Yamaha/Straightline hot rod. Flyin Ryan also posted a fast pass of 186.02 mph on his HRC II machine, all in the Pro Max Competition Class.
Well, how about the fastest pass ever in the 1000 foot mark by none other than the Ensor/Warning/Hypersports machine know as Frozen Assets IV and a new build for 2019 competition! Posting an Amazing 194.38 mph pass with a backup speed of 190.11 mph was Flyin Ryan Ensor on the Warning Family/Hypersports HRC IV Machine in the TopGun Shootout to take Top Speed of the day! This machine is a custom build four cylinder four stroke machine, Precision turbo, and CVT clutches with a snowmobile belt. Congratulations ladies and gentlemen and great work by all involved on these Hot Rods!
All records require a run within 2% to back up their World Record run and over 1000 fans and race supporters were on hand to witness the racing throughout the day!
This NSSR Super Series event in Chetek was hosted by the Chetek Chamber of Commerce in conjunction with many of the local area businesses of the Chetek Area. Also, a big thanks to the City of Chetek, the Chetek Police Department, the Barron County Sheriff’s Office, and the Wisconsin DNR for their support and cooperation to make this event happen. I would also like to give a special thanks to Brit who brought the big snow cat to move the snow banks back to make even plowing the racetracks and parking areas possible, there is a lot of snow!
Ron and Stacy Bray of NSSR want to thank all who participated, supported, and sponsored our three events in 2019 for just another great year of speed run action. We would like to thank all our sponsors who make these races possible!
See www.racenssr.com and facebook under National Straightline Snowmobile Racing for more information on results and upcoming events.