2012-13 Round 5
Halloween Havoc - Quarry Heights Raceway
October 25, 2012
Round 5 of 16
Margetta Maniacal at Halloween Havoc
(Wauwatosa, WI) --Dan Margetta made a rare IndySlotCar Series appearance, Thursday night at Quarry Heights Raceway, and drove off with a clean sweep of the annual Halloween Havoc. The win marked the second straight for Margetta in the historic event. Margetta began the night by setting fast time and backed it up by taking his heat win over Everet Kamikawa and Tom Spehert. Kamikawa chased Margetta the entire distance and wound up taking the coveted transfer spot. And in the 20-minute final, Margetta was stout the entire distance. His pre-race call to race in the yellow and red lanes had the field scratching their collective heads, but Margetta would have the last ghoulish laugh.
Mike Fitzlaff, who earlier in the night was gifted a spot in the final when heat leader Mark Walczak DNF’ed while leading with just seconds to run, duplicated the feat-throwing his GEICO ride off the table just 16 laps into the main event. “I shouldn’t have even been in the final, so I was going for it,” stated Fitzlaff. That left hometown hero Matt Hayek and Kamikawa to try and chase down Margetta. However, late in the going, Hayek came flying off the table, ending his bid for victory and sending the capacity crowd home disgruntled. Knowing it was a head-to-head matchup over the final five minutes; Kamikawa set his National Guard sponsored machine into high gear and chased Margetta down. In the final seconds he got to the tail end of the lead lap before running out of time, laps and handling.
Margetta scored $9000 in IndySlotCar Pole Cash, but left it behind for the trophy girl. “Did you look at her?” asked the happy winner. “She needs a lot of work. The $9,000 will just be a start.”
The final rundown saw Walczak claiming the fifth spot with teammate Dean Strom in sixth. Mike Kristof, John Weidemann and Spehert rounded out the field. In addition to Margetta, Fitzlaff and Hayek took heat wins.
The large Quarry Heights gathering was told by event organizers to expect the 2012-13 Series debut of Amy Butler. She, however, was a no-show-promoting the promoters to refund ticket purchases and call in extra security. Butler’s people claim a “sponsor conflict” for the non-appearance. (editor’s note: While she has slightly more wins than another popular, sponsor driven, female racer-she apparently has more diva in her than everybody’s favorite website pinup gal)
The IndySlotSeries travels next to the Infield Road Course at South Shore Superspeedway for the annual Turkey Trot de-slot race, Thursday night, November 8.