9/15/10 – It was off to northern Wisconsin this past weekend
for Bill Balog & the B Squared Motorsports team, as they were in action at
the Superior Speedway on Friday & the Cedar Lake Speedway on Saturday.
With rain in the
forecast, the decision was made to forgo qualifying on Friday and use the
passing point system instead. Bill started from 3rd place in heat
race #3 & needed to garner as many points as possible in the 10 lap race.
At the drop of the green, Bill uncharacteristically fell to 5th
place, & had his work cut out for him as the race wore on. He got around
the 4th place machine early on & by the time the checkered flew;
he worked his way back to the 3rd position, which was enough to earn
a spot in the 30 lap feature.
He lined up inside
row #4 to start the main event, after two false starts the race finally got
underway. Bill began to work his way toward the front & he was soon
battling with in the top 5. By the time a caution flew on lap 16, Bill had
sliced & diced his way through traffic all the way up to 2nd
place. On the ensuing restart, he drove under the race leader in turns 1&2
and had the lead going in to turn 3. He began to quickly open up a margin on 2nd
place before a caution on lap 19 bunched the field back up. On this restart,
Bill went to the high side of the track in turns 1&2 and began to pull away
from the rest of the field. He would drive the last 11 laps flawless on the
high side of the track & go on to score the IRA portion of the Northern
Nationals. Bill now has 6 IRA feature wins thus far in 2010.
Saturday’s program
at Cedar Lake started as scheduled with the Osborn & Son qualifying, Bill
turned a lap of 11.355 seconds which was fast enough to claim 2nd quick
out of the 36 cars present. By virtue of 2nd quick, Bill started 6th
in heat race #2, & he would need a top 4 finish to transfer to the feature.
He quickly got to work once the green flag flew & was inside the top 4 by
the midway point of the race. With a couple cautions late in the race, Bill got
the breaks he needed, & on the final one he grabbed the lead and would go
on to collect the heat race win.
With the 3 pill
drawn for the inversion, Bill started 6th in the 30 lap “Jerry
Richert Memorial” feature event. The team hoped they made the right changes to
the car to handle the ever changing surface. Once the race went green, Bill
began to battle, with hopes of brining home a solid top 5 finish. As the race
wore on, he had made his way in to the top 5, and soon was battling with in the
top 3. With 2 late cautions, Bill thought he might have had something for the
leaders, but in the end, he had to settle for 3rd. With this 3rd
place finish, Bill & the team now have 19 straight top 5 feature finishes
with the IRA.
This weekend the Race
Gear X / Super Shox 17B team will take their 215 point lead to the Oshkosh
Speedzone in Oshkosh, WI on Friday, September 17th & then the
Plymouth Dirt Track in Plymouth, WI on Saturday, September 18th for
the Frank Filskov Memorial.
To keep up on all
the latest news regarding the team, be sure to visit the all new team website
at www.b2motorsports.com. You can
also become a fan of B Squared Motorsports on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bsquaredmotorsports
Sponsorship for the
2010 season comes from the following companies: Buesser Concrete, Hoeft
Builders, Hepfner Racing Products & HRP Wings, DMI Race Products, XYZ Machine,
Allstar Performance, K&N Engineering, Astro Titanium, Super Shox, BLZ, Rod
End Supply,B Squared Visual Solutions,
Weld Racing, Outerwears Inc, Race Gear X, Gleason Racing Equipment, Rhey
Graphics, Gaerte Engines, Competition Driveline, Ringers Gloves, Plank
Enterprises, and Buzz Signs & Graphics.
