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By ERALD JOHNSON Plainsman Sports Editor “It’s not like it used to be when a couple of cars won all the time. Racing seems to be getting a lot tougher every year. This year seemed especially tough.” Aberdeen’s Ron Droog made those comments Tuesday night as the newly crowned late model point champion for 1981 at State Fair Speedway. Droog finished second in the late model feature behind Harrold’s Sheldon Reding, but his performance in the final racing program of the season was more than enough to give him the title in one of the most competitive point races the late model division has ever witnessed. Droog’s final point tally stood at 598 with Reding, last year’s champ, second with 554. The top five also included Dennis Selting of Huron with 522, Roger Saathoff of Bruce with 518 and Dallas Lafferty of Reliance with 500. For Droog, it was his first ever championship at SFS. “There have been a couple of seconds, but nothing worse than a fourth,” he explained of his past point finishes at Huron’s half-mile oval. Droog also has a comfortable lead in the point standings heading into Friday night’s season championship at Brown County Raceway at Aberdeen. Huron’s Randy Hickle survived an equally competitive point race in the sportsmen division, winning that ttle with 282 points. Miller’s Kent Wilson slipped past Pukwana’s Doug Myers, who was forced to scratch from the feature, for second place. Wilson had 268 and Myers 262. Doug Peck and Doug Haber of Huron, who share the driving duties on their street stock car, are the co-champions in that division. Peck and Haber have 87 points, followed by Steve Pazour of Pukwana with 5014. For Droog, Hickle, Peck and Haber, they have only memories to remember their season championship titles by. Instead, the season championship trophies went to the feature race winners, who were Reding, Wilson and Ed Soulek of Puk wana. Reding led all 20 laps of the late model feature and was followed across the finish line by Droog, Jim Schmidt of Flandreau, Dallas Lafferty of Reliance and Ardy Eilers of Canby, Minn. The center of all talk at the speedway was Saathoff’s ap pearance in a new car, a 1981 Chevrolet Camaro taken in trade when he sold his 1981 Buick Regal to Brad Tollekson of Canby, Minn. Neither driver enjoyed success with Saathoff’s best finish a fifth and Tollekson’s highest placing a fourth. Hickle and Myers were one-two in the point standings prior to the racing program, but neither figured into the outcome of the sportsmen feature. Myers scratched from the race while Hickle started, dropped out and then reentered to place 16th. Seventeen cars started the sportsmen feature with Wilson and Marlow pulling away from the rest of the pack to stage their own two-car battle for the lead. Wilson kept the upper hand in the battle while Marlow lost power on the final lap and dropped out, allowing Bill Picek of Pukwana to slip into second and Keith Ohirogge of Woonsocket to claim third. The street stock feature was an abbreviated race as the checkered flag came out on the sixth lap when Rick Hovde of Willow Lake was black flaged for colliding with with Soulek, who was leading the race. Soulek was award the win with the Peck-Haber car taking runner-up honors. Although the regular season is over, racing action at SFS is also scheduled for three days during the South Dakota State Fair. STREET First heat; Joe Dee Doug Haber ;7, Huron; 2. Rick Hovde (17), Willow Lake; 3. Steve Pazour (81), Pukwana; 4. Fritz LaRoche (05), Lower Brule; 5. Ed Soulek (61), Pukwana; 6. Marlin Winters (13), St. Lawrence. Trophy dash: 1. Peck Haber; 2. LaRoche; 3. Soulek; 4. Pazour; 5. Hovde; 6. Winters. Feature: 1. Soulek; 2. Peck-Haber; 3. LaRoche; 4. Pazour; 5. Winters. Black flag — Hovde. Final ‘top 5” point standings: 1. Peck. Haber 87; 2. Pazour 502; 3. Hovde 44; 4. Soulek 40; 5. Winters 36. SPORTSMEN First heat: 1. Roger Thompson (27), Wessington Springs; 2. Torrie Oswald (80), Aberdeen; 3. Sonny Isburg (00), Lower Brule; 4. Mike Hammill (63), Miller; 5. Gary Steichen (9), Woon socket; 6. Jerry Mikel (69), Madison Second heat; 1. Keith Chirogge (06), Woonsocket; 2. Bill Picek (01), Puk wana; 3. Chuck McGillivray (101), Madison; 4. Robbin Smith (15), Huron; 5. Dave Marlow (3), Redfield; 6. Randy Winegar (74), Huron; 7. Jerry Barnes (27), Harrold. Third heat: 1. Mike Mareska (11), Miller; 2. Kent Wilson (3), Miller; 3. Randy Hickle (75), Huron; 4. Ron Muth (85), Wolsey; 5. Doug Myers (1), Puk wana; 6. John Fraser (7), Woonsocket. Consolation: 1. Isburg; 2. Winegar; 3. Smith; 4. Hickle; 5. Steichen; 6. Barnes; 7. Muth; 8. McGillivray; 9. Hammill; 10. Myers; 11. Marlow. Trophy dash: 1. Thompson; 2. Wilson; 3. Chirogge; 4. Oswald; 5. Picek; 6 Feature: 1. Wilson; 2. Picek; Chirogge; 4. Fraser; 5. Thompson, Winegar; 7. Barnes; 8. Steichen; Oswald; 10. Smidt; 11. McGillivray; Marlow; 13. Hammill; 14. Muth, Mareska; 16. Hickle; 17. Isburg. Final “top 5’ point standings: 1. Hickle 282; 2. Wilson 268; 3. Myers 262; 4. Smidt 235; 5. Marlow 216 LATE MODEL First heat; 1. Al Nordstrom (1), Aberdeen; 2. Randy Schilling (22), Gettysburg; 3. Dennis Gross (60), Huron; 4. Brad Tollekson (88), Canby, Minn; 5. Jim Schmidt (14), Flandreau, Second heat; 1. Dennis Selting (18), Huron; 2. Sneldon Reding (11), Harrold; 3. Ron Droog (X), Aberdeen; 4. Dallas Lafferty (45), Reliance; 5. Roger Saathoff (85), Bruce. Trophy dash: 1. Selting; 2. Reding; 3. Nordstrom; 4. Droog; 5. Schilling; 6 Gross. Feature: 1. Reding; 2. Droog; 3. Sch midt; 4. Lafferty; 5. Ardy Eilers (75), Canby, Minn.; 6. Gross; 7. Nordstrom; 8. Selting; 9. Tollekson; 10. Saathoff. Final “top 5” point standings: 1 Droog 598; 2. Reding 554; 3. Selting 522; 4. Saathoff 518; 5. Lafferty 500.
Newspaper Details
Huron Daily Plainsman
Huron, South Dakota, US
Wed, Aug 26, 1981
Page 10
Full Page
Clipped by
Dustin H.
USA 04 Aug 2026
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