Randt Brothers, Johnson, Adams Lead Fiesta City opener victors
- tombergie01
- May 3
- 7 min read
With I-94 EMR Speedway in Fergus Falls and Red River Valley Speedway in West Fargo cancelling, I was looking for some racing to write about on Friday. I decided to cover Fiesta City Speedway, remotely, for the track’s season opener. I decided this year I’m just going to cover racing, when or whenever it works out. I want the blog to have variety and cover several tracks. As I’ve said in this blog previously, I have a soft spot for Fiesta City and Madison Speedways, since I grew up close to both. Fiesta City was 15 minutes from where I grew up.
As I’ve also said, I don’t judge car counts or track conditions this early in the season, especially on an opening night. There are going to be hiccups for everyone as the bugs get worked out. But I will say 86 cars for opening night isn’t bad. My biggest issue as a fan is running seven weekly classes, but I won’t belabor that point, people who read the blog have heard that before.
It was the good night for the Randt family from Siren, Wis. – the brothers claimed wins in the Wissota Midwest Modified and Street Stock main events. In fact, three of the seven winners came from Wisconsin.
The defending Wissota Midwest Modified national champion – David Simpson of Thunder Bay, Ontario (who easily won the long tow of the night award) was on the outside of the front row of feature next to 18-year-old Landyn Randt of Siren, Wis. But it was the defending Wissota 100 champion, 16-year-old Blake Adams of Cameron, Wis., who would surge into the lead on the opening lap with a move on the outside out of turn two. The caution would wave one lap into the main event.
Onyx Johnson, 15, of Lowry moved into second on the restart as Simpson fell back. Randt was third while Gary, S.D., driver Darren Engesser settled into fourth.
Adams held the lead, but Johnson was about two car lengths back. Randt was all over Johnson for second.
Tyler Vernon of Mason, Wis, got by Simpson for fifth, and the caution flew with 12 to go for Damon Vejtruba stalled in turn two. Vejtruba, making his debut, left on the hook.
On the restart Vernon moved into fourth while Johnson and Randt dueled for second. Adams’s lead was about a half-second. Engesser had to contend with Tim Kanten of Milan for the fifth spot. Randt and Vernon both got by Johnson with eight laps left.
Randt was slowly eating away at Adams’s lead and was within .394 seconds with five to go. With four to go he was within .065 seconds and with three to go, would make the pass for the lead with three to go. Vernon, who likely was as fast as Randt, took over second.
Randt would cruise to a 1.659 second win over Vernon with Adams taking third. The top three drivers were all from Wisconsin.
Side note on Siren, Wis., where Randt is from – I covered the school and city governments in Siren during my first newspaper job at the Burnett County Sentinel way back in 1999-2000. Spent a lot of time in that village, also covered sporting events there. A couple of years after I left a tornado devastated the town. Cool little lake community.
Johnson was fourth and Kanten would survive the battle for fifth.
The good news for the Wissota Street Stocks was there was an excellent 21-car field on hand. The bad news was just one lap into the race there was a huge pileup on the front stretch that involved almost half the field. I had the benefit of seeing the replay, and coming out of turn four, there was contact between the second-row cars, Ty Schuler of Montevideo and Dustin Schultz of Marshall, and both got turned around, and it left a melee behind them. Defending Wissota 100 champion Kolten Brauer was involved and had significant front-end damage, and his night was over. Wade Tirrel of White, S.D., and Tommy Pogones of Princeton were also done with damage. The crash could have been much, much worse in terms of damage.
Levi Randt was the early leader after the restart as former national champion Kyle Dykhoff fought Schultz for second. Josh Long of Canby was fourth with Cody Hatch of Montevideo fighting Mike Jans of Clarkfield for fifth. Jans would move into the spot.
Randt was cruising with a 2.3 second lead over Dykhoff. Zach Flickinger of Madison was also running well and moved into sixth behind Schultz.
Long was fast and took over second from Dykhoff, and Jans would follow. Dykhoff would pull off shortly after as his 11 machine was off the pace.
Jans might have been the fastest car on the track but faced a three-second deficit behind Levi Randt with seven to go. Long was third and Flickinger’s 15F machine had climbed to fourth ahead of Schultz.
Jans was eating into the lead – cutting it to 1.796 seconds with four laps left – as the gap continued to close. With two laps to go the lead was down to .659 seconds. Lapped traffic became an issue as things tightened up front. Jans made a last charge out of turn four and came very close to the win but fell .059 seconds short as Randt held on. Jans was second. Long and Flickinger both ran well and finished third and fourth respectively, while Schultz would take fifth.
Watertown driver Lee Grosz jumped out to the lead in the nine-car Wissota Late Model feature but the Millennial Farmer, Zach Johnson of Lowry quickly moved into second. The Commissioner, Matt Gilbertson of Montevideo, took over third with Rusty Kollman of Carrington, N.D.
Grosz would expand the lead briefly when Johnson tagged the wall; but Johnson, who has run many laps at Fiesta City, quickly closed the gap. Gilbertson was right there as well.
Johnson would power around Grosz on the outside with three to go to take over the top spot. One lap later, Gilbertson got into the corner a little hot and tagged Grosz in turn one and spun the #4 machine to bring out the yellow. Gilbertson was charged with the yellow and would pull pit side, leaving only five cars left with four to go.
Johnson pulled away to a comfortable lead as Devin Fouquette of St. Cloud would win a hard-fought battle with Grosz for second. Jon Tollakson of Montevideo was fourth ahead of Kollman.
Nate Heinrich of Bellingham has a sharp, black 10H this year, and not only does the car look good – it looks fast. He jumped ahead of Ryan Flaten of Madison for the lead. Blake Adams, doing double duty, soon moved into second with Brandon Copp of Brule, Wis., following suit.
Heinrich would open about 1.3 seconds on Adams with Copp in third and Flaten in fourth. Wisconsin driver Nick Oreskovich was battling Ryan Gierke of Villard for fifth.
Adams had cut into Heinrich’s lead and with two laps left, made his move on the bottom heading into turn one. He would go on to the win over Heinrich with Copp taking third. Flaten and Gierke rounded out the top five.
A solid 14-car Wissota Hornet field took the green. Anthony Jenson was the early leader in that main event with Bobie Arnes of Foreston soon taking over the top spot. Jerik Stabler of Mitchell, S.D., Chase Pourrier of Fergus Falls and Brady Albertson of Sauk Rapids were fighting hard for fourth with Pourrier eventually taking the spot.
Arnes was in control up front; Pourrier’s night ended with a puff of smoke with four laps remaining, he was second at the time. Albertson was second and Stabler third. Arnes had a commanding lead, but the caution would wave with two to go to bunch up the field.
Albertson took advantage of the yellow and edged ahead of Arnes in what turned into a great finish. He would win by a few feet over Arnes, who was doomed by the late caution. Stabler was third, Jenson was fourth and Bradley Rossow of Florence, S.D., rounded out the top five.
The Pure Stocks – unsanctioned at Fiesta City, which I recommended to most tracks – had six cars start the main event of the seven in attendance. There were a couple of hiccups at the start, with Cottonwood driver Landon Albertson taking the early lead over teenager Colten Schultz of Grove City.
Albertson was in good shape, opening a good lead over Colsten Schultz, only 13 years old, of Grove City, who was fighting Justin Erp of Montevideo for second, until getting crossed up and losing the lead. Erp would lead briefly but Albertson would recover nicely and surge back into the lead with three to go.
Erp and Schultz had a chance to make a run at the win after a restart with two to go. Schultz made a challenge on the final lap but Albertson, a senior at Lakeview High School, held on for the win. Albertson’s father, Ben, was a long-time street stock racer in that area, and grew up about 3 miles from my house outside of Clarkfield.
For only having six cars, it was a pretty entertaining race. Tad Peterson of Dawson had an adventurous race but would finish fourth ahead of Brady Hagen of Montevideo.
Only five Wissota Super Stocks were on hand. I won’t say much on that number other than to say the super stocks have never been huge in numbers in Fiesta City/Madison region.
Shawn Fernkes of Danube grabbed the early lead over Jason Hobbs of Ham Lake. Defending Fiesta City champion Travis Scott of Glenwood was in third. After a spin with eight to go, Scott made a charge for the lead on the low line and would edge past Fernkes for the top spot.
Once Scott was in front, he pulled away and the race was pretty spread out. Scott would pick up the win with Fernkes and Hobbs rounding out the top three. Not much more to say on that one.
Fiesta City Notes
--Sophie Anderson of Chokio has moved from the Pure Stocks into the midwest modified class. She won five pure stock features at tracks in that area in 2023 and added two more wins in 2024. She did just fine in her debut, finishing in 14th after starting 17th. There will be a learning curve in the class, but I think she will get better each night behind the wheel.
--You had two defending Wissota 100 winners in attendance – Brauer and Adams.
--Jason Vejtruba of Atwater is a long-time racer in that area. I remember him in the mid mods and super stocks as well. He’s a good, steady veteran, and now his son, Damon, has joined him in the class.
Friday night notes
--Andy Rossow of Florence, S.D., won the Wissota Street Stock feature Friday night at Brown County Speedway in Aberdeen. Lucas Rodin of Marion, N.D., was runner-up in both the Wissota Modified and Midwest Modified features.
--Todd Carter of Lisbon won the IMCA Stock Car feature Friday at Dacotah Speedway in Mandan. Andrew Jochim of Glyndon, last week’s winner in the class, finished a solid fifth.
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