Hello everyone and thank you for

Hello everyone and thank you for visiting our website. Here at the Widdis Racing camp, we just finished up 2 races of our short,yet successful ice racing season. For season #2 of the ice racing program, we added a couple of cars. First off, I moved from the #17 Cavalier over to the #16 Cavalier that we built last winter. Jeff Dehanke of Dehanke Racing took over the duties of the #17 car. Also, the team expanded this winter as we bought a 1989 Chevrolet Beretta V-6. We set this up for ice racing and my Dad, Boyd Widdis, as the driver.

The first week proved very successful as I drew a very good starting position. Jeff and I ended up in the same race, I started on the pole and Jeff started a couple rows behind me. It was a great race as I and the driver in second battled it out with me coming out on top by a couple of feet at the line. That transferred me directly to the A-feature, and Jeff, disappointed with his debut, to the Semi-Feature. Jeff soon found his groove, as he raced his way from the back of the lineup, all the way up to the lead and then won the race by almost a half a lap transferring him up to the A-feature. Congrats to Jeffrey on his first Ice Racing win. My dad started out the 6-cylinder race great by passing 4 cars on the outside around the first corner, but struggled to find grip coming out of turn 2. This dropped him back a bit, but he fought his way back for a 4th place finish. At feature time, the track was starting to go away as holes were opening and the track was getting a little flooded. But, the Widdis Racing stable clawed their way to the front, as I finished 3rd and Jeff ended up working his way up to 6th. In my dad’s feature, he struggled to get through traffic while the leader pulled away. When he finally broke into 2nd place and started catching the leader, the leader was too far ahead and dad ran out of laps. But nonetheless a great day for the team.
Week 2 started out just as good. The track was a lot better this week. In the 6-cylinder heat race, dad struggled to find grip and ended up in 4th place. The 4-cylinder race proved exciting as I started outside Row 1 with Jeff inside Row 2. I took the lead in the first corner, and before I could clear myself to the bottom, Jeff was already there. We battled for 1st place before Veteran Ice Racer and Veteran Late Model Racer Red Adair split between us and took the lead. I then took 2nd place over Jeff and went after the leader, but couldn’t pull off the pass on the Veteran driver. Jeff held on to finish 3rd. The features didn’t turn out as well. Dad had the best finish, as he drove a great race while struggling to find grip in the very competitive race and finished with a Top 5 in his race. I was running well, battling for 2nd place with Red Adair and another Veteran driver, when the motor started losing power and eventually expired leaving me with a DNF and a Last Place finish. Jeff struggled to find grip, but managed to hang on and drive a good race finishing 11th.

Ice Racing may continue depending on the weather conditions on February 25th at Marinette again. My Dad and Jeff should be attending, but I, however, will be unable to attend this race due to a prior commitment to go cheer on the Detroit Pistons down in Detroit. This will be my first home game experience with the Pistons, so I am looking forward to this and hope it’s an exciting game.

As for the late model, we are working furiously on it to get it finished for racing season. As for the first race of the season, we are not sure if it will be the Big 8 opener at Rockford Speedway on April 1st which we had originally planned, or if it will be a later date somewhere else. Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough, and will be back soon for another update as the 2006 summer racing season comes up quickly. Thanks once again for visiting our website and please support our sponsors as they are a big part of our success!

- Bret Widdis