Plover, WI – Gabe Sommers Racing took part in a storied event this past weekend. The 59th Annual Short Track Championships had been moved to Dells Raceway Park following the closure of the Deery family’s Rockford Speedway, marking the beginning of a new chapter with the story of a true crown jewel event. With former winners including Mark Martin, Joe Shear, Dick Trickle, and many more legends of short track racing, this event was one that would bring a lot of notoriety for the winner.

GSR would unload bright and early on NSTC Sunday, ready for 150 laps of action in the newly renamed Hugh Deery Classic. Technical inspection went quickly, and it was now time to fire the engines and roll out for practice. Of the 23 cars that made laps, Gabe would slot into the seventh spot, only 0.149 off of quick time. Sommers’ 24 laps of practice gave the crew some feedback from what they saw visually, combined with driver feedback, and wasted no time getting to work on the No. 15 Ford Mustang. The changes made for improvement on the time chart during the scuff session for the Super Late Models, as Gabe would whittle down his margin behind the top of the leaderboard to only 0.082 seconds.

A quick schedule of events pushed qualifying to the focus of teams as they prepped their racecars for their fastest two laps of the day. With his eyes set on claiming a “Faster Than A Speeding Bullet” qualifying trophy, Sommers would take to the track and turn in a 13.489 second lap time. Unfortunately it would be less than a tenth of a second shy of quick time, but would set him up to start from a manageable third row spot on the grid. Per usual, GSR would take their heat race and treat it as an extra practice session, going fifth to third while keeping the nose clean and tires in good shape for the 150 lap feature.

Rolling off from the sixth spot in the Hugh Deery Classic 150, Sommers would let the field stretch out in the first five to se4ven laps before starting to work. Moving up the high side, Gabe would surgically move into the top five with ease on lap 8/150. Looking forward, The No. 15 would be bottled up behind the third and fourth place cars as they jockeyed for position. A solo spinner in turn four would slow the field on the fifteenth circuit of the afternoon, stacking the field back up. A brief stumble by the leader of the inside row sent Gabe backwards one spot, but as the high speed shuffle began to sort itself he would find his way back inside of the top five. Gabe would continue his march forward under green flag conditions, making his way to third and on the doorstep of the second place car before the second caution of the day would again slow the field on lap 53/150. The top four cars would produce an impressive battle for supremacy upon the drop of the green, with heavyweights going toe to toe for the crowd. The beginnings of lapped traffic would help put the field back to single file, by the halfway break came before the leaders could get hot and heavy with slower cars.

With no extra tires allowed, the field was soon filled with fuel and sent back out with small adjustments to their machines. Still in third place, Gabe knew that it would soon be time to go for it all if he wanted to make a push for the lead. On the restart, Gabe would briefly fall back to fourth place for twelve laps, but showed his strengths once again as the tires warmed up, sliding back into a podium spot with just 63 laps to go. Lap traffic would once again become a factor in short order, with Sommers stalking second place as they weaved in and out of slower cars. The long green flag run had crossed the sixty lap mark, but problems would arise with just twelve laps to go as Sommers would lose steam and roll his No. 15 up the hill and into the pits from the third position. The cause of the sudden end was determined to be motor related, relegating a superb run to a dismal 17th place finish.

With the National Short Track Championship now in the rearview, GSR will look forward to a trip to Minnesota for the penultimate round of the 2024 ASA Midwest Tour season at Elko Speedway on Saturday, September 21st. Currently holding a 32 point lead over second place in the points standings, Gabe will look to maintain his command of the points lead during the Thunderstruck 93. As always, if you can’t make it in person, watch along on TrackTV.com at 5:00 PM CST.