2012-13 Round 6
Turkey Trot - Inside Edge at South Shore Superspeedway
November 8, 2012
Round 6 of 16
Margetta Top Turkey With Second Consecutive Win
(St. Francis, WI) – Hometown driver Dan Margetta captured his second win in a row and 35th of his career with a victory an the Turkey Trot at the Infield Road Course at South Shore Superspeedway. In an event that normally is a playground for defending IndySlotCar Series champion Mark Walczak, it was once again Margetta and Ev Kamikawa putting on a show at the end of the race.
Mike Fitzlaff scored the pole, his second of the season, with the quickest lap in qualifying but luck ran out for the KVHO driver when he crashed out of his heat race. Leading heat races did not prove to be the place to be as RJ Foyt driver Matt Hayek and KVHO's Mike Lack crashed out of their respective races after running at the front of the pack. Heat winners John Wiedemann, Walczak and Margetta were joined by Kamikawa, who captured the transfer position for the second race in a row, to compete in the Turkey Trot.
The de-slot format of the night was the story as drivers were allowed only three de-slots in the heat races and four in the final Turkey Trot race. Out of the nine drivers competing, only two survived the night without taking home a DNF - winner Margetta and fifth place finisher Mike Kristof, his best showing of the season.
One of the most surprising DNF's on the night happened when Mark Walczak flew off the track only 27 laps into the Turkey Trot. Walczak has a stellar record at the Turkey Trot which is where he captured his first career win back in 2005. Including that win he has piled up five victories including a current streak, broken now, of four in a row. In the two races he did not win, he finished second. But, tonight was a different story and the current point leader finished in fourth.
The race continued with Margetta swapping the lead back and forth with Wiedemann during the entire first half of the race. Wiedemann held the point after pit stops were completed near half way and held a two lap lead over Margetta . As Margetta started to reel in the leader, Wiedemann suffered his fourth de-slot, ending his race and ruining his opportunity to eat into Walczak's point standings lead.
Margetta assumed the lead but had to play it safe since his next de-slot would end his race. Reminiscent of the Halloween Havoc, Kamikawa ripped off qualifying pace laps to run down Margetta for the second event in a row. Keeping up his streak of never finishing worse than his last race this year, Kamikawa had nothing to lose and raced back to the lead lap, but during that torrid pace used up two de-slots to put him on thin ice as well. With time running out, the two drivers raced into turn five and Margetta spun. What happened next was disputed by both drivers. Kamikawa flew past Margetta, but also de-slotted as time expired. Based on the rules, Kamikawa received a DNF, giving Margetta the win.
"Kamikawa can try, but he'll never rise to the greatness that is Dan Margetta," said Margetta, the gracious winner.
"I won fair and square," explained Kamikawa. "The electronic scoring was down and the power should have kicked off when the race ended. I was ahead. I know that, Dan knows that, everyone at the race knows that. I can't see one reason why we didn't win the race. I think I got screwed but I don't want to dig too deep into the politics. There's politics in every form of motorsports and I hope it doesn't come to that."
The final standings for the 2012 Turkey Trot: Margetta, Kamikawa, Wiedemann, Walczak, Kristof, Lack, Amy Butler (her first race of the season), Hayek and pole sitter Fitzlaff.
Walczak continues to hold on to the points lead with a 15 point gap to second place Wiedemann. Kamikawa and Margetta are climbing up the standings into fourth and fifth respectively.
The IndySlotCar series takes a break for Thanksgiving and returns to compete at the high-speed, challenging Road Course at Badger Raceway for the Duane Sweeney Memorial GP, an open class event, on Thursday night, November 29th.