Ace Accelerates To Icebreaker 50 Victory
(Wisconsin Dells, WI) The Midwest Truck Series kicked off the 2024 season at Dells Raceway Park on Saturday April 13th. An absolute beautiful day with sunshine and 70 degrees made for a perfect spring race. Fans came in masses bringing the facility to near capacity.
28 Midwest Truck Series drivers showed up for the opening event. Leading the way in Six08 Graphics Qualifying was Jacob Nottestad with a lap of 14.076. New in 2024 is the QA1 Heat Race Challenge. The field is divided into three heat races, an Even/Odd and a 3rd heat race all going for an additional $25 bonus from QA1 for winning the heat race. Tom Steinbach, Eugene Gregorich III and Grant Griesbach all picked up heat race wins and the 10 points that will go for the overall QA1 Heat Race Challenge. With 28 Trucks on the grounds an 18 lap Last Chance Race was needed. The Top 14 in qualifying were locked into the 50 lap main event while trucks 15-28 headed to a last chance race. Eugene Gregorich III would go on to win the last chance race with Michael Guderski 2nd, Cody Vanderloop 3rd and Braison Bennett 4th. Making their way into the feature with the owner’s points provisional was Kevin Zielezinski and the alternate provisional was Tucker Bodendorfer.
The 20 Truck starting field was now ready to go for 50 laps. Brad Mueller and Aaron Moyer would lead the field to the green flag. Moyer would get the advantage on the opening lap and take the lead. For the first seven laps nobody could break away and the entire field was battling for mere inches trying to gain any advantage they could. On lap 8 Mueller would take the lead from Moyer but Moyer would battle back and regain the lead on lap 9. Veteran driver James Swan would sit in 3rd as he and Chester Ace worked to make their way to the front. The field continued to battle side by side like slot cars on a slot track. Lap 14 would see Swan get by Mueller for the 2nd spot with Moyer starting to break away from the pack and open up a strong lead. Ace would make his way past Mueller on lap 21 to take the 3rd spot from Mueller. Two laps later Ace would get by Swan and take over 2nd. Ace was now on the chase to get to Moyer. At the halfway point in the race the field began to separate with Moyer in the lead, Ace in 2nd, Swan 3rd, Mueller 4th and Nick Van 5th. On lap 30 Ace was closing in on Moyer fast as Swan and Mueller were battling side by side for 3rd. Lap 36 would see Ace make a move to the inside of Moyer and take the lead. Jacob Nottestad would move into the top 5 with just 9 laps to go as he would get past Van. Lap 44, the only caution of the day would come out when Swan came to a stop at the top of turn 4. A 6 lap shootout had the fans on their feet boiling over with excitement to see who would come out on top. On the restart Ace got the advantage on Moyer and Mueller would follow Ace on the bottom into the 2nd spot. As the field took the white flag Ace separated himself from the field one last time and took home the Icebreaker 50 win. Nottestad would work his way all the way up to 2nd from his 12th place starting spot with Mueller 3rd, Kevin Knuese 4th and Bryce Miller 5th.
After an exciting opening race to the 2024 season the Midwest Truck Series will be back in action at Madison International Speedway on Sunday May 5th for the Joe Shear Classic 36 presented by Club La Mark. The Midwest Truck Series joins the ASA Midwest Tour Super Late Models on the traditional Sunday afternoon paying tribute to the Midwest legend.
