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Mech and Apfelbeck Battle to the Line in Thrilling Finish!

The Wisconsin Legends Racing Dirt Series season kicked off with a thrilling race this past Saturday (5/19) at Beaver Dam Raceway. 22 cars signed in for the first WLRDS points event of the season. The heat races kicked off the night so the track was still freshly prepped and a bit on the greasy side. The first heat belonged to Kim Clover as she picked up her first win of the season. The second heat was won by Chris Hoedel by a large margin. Justin Pearson came in second but was unfortunately DQ’ed due to missing a transponder. This moved everyone up a spot and bumped Pearson out of the redraw. The third heat race saw the most action of the heats with the lead changing three times throughout the race. Frankie Hoch led early on but gave up the lead to Ryan Sullivan a few laps in. Bille Lehmann took over the lead late into the eight lap heat race, giving him his first win of his legends career.
Bille Lehmann and Dominick Troyan led the field to the green flag for the twenty lap feature. Cody Apfelbeck started 7th and was up to 2nd when the first caution came out. Kim Clover was running 3rd and Ryan Mech had worked up to 4th from the 10th position. The track was fast and smooth which provided some great racing action with drivers trading positions back and forth and tight racing throughout the field. Of course a fast track can produce what many fans refer to as “the big one” and it struck about halfway through the race. Ryan Sullivan got a little sideways in front of Mike Mueller and the field stacked up behind them. Vince Bartolotta barrel-rolled his machine about three times after getting hit in the side by Chris Hoedel. Dan Mech cartwheeled after launching off of Frankie Hoch who slowed down to avoid the chaos. Both Mech and Bartolotta walked away unharmed. A total of five cars retired due to damage. The restart saw Apfelbeck out front as Lehmann took the inside and Ryan Mech was put on the top. Mech and Apfelbeck pulled away as Lehmann faded back a few spots and Justin Pearson worked his way from the 20th starting spot to the top 5. Apfelbeck seemed to be in control as his lead extended until a caution came out. Mech chose the top which put Pearson on the bottom as they would both chase down Apfelbeck on the green, white, checkered restart. Apfelbeck got a jump on both drivers but Mech quickly closed in on his back bumper. Mech was able to dive under Apfelbeck coming out of turn and beat him to the line by a few inches.
The win was Mech’s first since 2016 when he won two features in the month of May. Apfelbeck came home second, Pearson was third, Lehmann ended up fourth, and Kim Clover came home in fifth. Pearson took home hard charger honors, moving from 20th to 3rd position throughout the race.
This upcoming weekend will be a doubleheader for the WLRDS as the series visits Beaver Dam Raceway on Saturday (5/26) and 141 Speedway on Sunday (5/27). This kicks off a string of 5 races in 9 days as the following weekend is a triple header with the series visiting Lafayette County Speedway on Friday, Beaver Dam on Saturday, and Angell Park Speedway on Sunday.

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