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Burnbury, Australia native Dayne Kingshott said Aberdeen will always be a special place to him.
He held off the rest of the field during the Northern Outlaws Sprint Association series annual stop at Brown County Speedway and took the checkered flag in the A feature race on Friday, June 26.
Dayne Kingshott (3) passes Sam Henderson during the NOSA Sprint series A feature race Friday, June 26 at the Brown County Speedway. Aberdeen Insider photo by Robb Garofalo.
The win was Kingshott’s first on American soil.
“It’s a pretty special moment, for sure. I knew on a technical track like here I needed to stay patient and not overdrive the car. I was just patient enough to pick my spots to pass the cars I needed to, and I didn’t make any mistakes that cost me,” he said.
Kingshott said the dirt oval was a little tricky and actually got faster as the 25-lap feature went on.
“It was pretty slick throughout the night even though they kept working on it, so my crew made the right calls,” he said. “The track actually got faster toward the end there, and you had to stay on your toes. Luckily, we held on and picked up the win.”
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The victory was Kingshott’s first in eight sprint car races since coming to the U.S. from Australia at the beginning of the season.
“We’d been getting our butts kicked in the 410 sprint cars in America for a few weeks. We’ve run Outlaw series races, and we’ve had good speed in most of them, we just need to keep working at it and get better so we can start running with some of the bigger guns on the series,” he said.
Kingshott splits his racing time between Australia and the U.S. He is part of the Lunstra Motorsports team out of Brandon.
“It’s really up to them as far as what they want to do,” he said. “We’re not too fussy about where we race, so we’re happy to go anywhere and race, to be honest. The main thing is to get better at our craft, and a win here in Aberdeen is a good part of what we’re trying to do, for sure.”
Watertown’s Kinzlee Giessinger (12G) tries to pass Jade Hastings of East Grand Forks, Minn., on the back straightaway during their NOSA Sprints heat race Friday, June 26 at the Brown County Speedway. Aberdeen Insider photo by Robb Garofalo.
Watertown native sold on speed of sprint cars
Watertown’s Kinzlee Giessinger is a big fan of driving fast.
Giessinger is currently running sprint cars around the Midwest and was in Aberdeen Friday.
The 18-year old began racing in go-karts, but all it took was a few laps behind the wheel of a sprint car for her to decide that’s where she wants to be.
“I’ve been looking at sprint cars for a while and told my dad I wanted to get into one, and we had an opportunity to run one in Cedar Lake Speedway in Wisconsin,” Giessinger said. “I ran it, I looked super good and told my dad, ‘Screw getting a limited late model, I wanna get a 305 sprint.’ They’re just so much fun, and we ended up getting one.”
Watertown’s Kinzlee Giessinger comes around second turn during the NOSA Sprints B feature race Friday, June 26 at Brown County Speedway. Aberdeen Insider photo by Robb Garofalo.
She said she ran half of last season in a go-kart and half in her sprint as she tried to get used to the move up.
“It was definitely a big jump,” she said. “Last year … everyone would come up to me at the go-kart track and tell me I had to stop trying to run my go-kart like my sprint car. It was a little while after that when I retired my go-kart.”
Giessinger said she understands the discipline it takes to handle a car that can reach 130 mph.
“A lot of people might look at it like, ‘Oh, you’re a girl, and you’re young and they should have to be nice to you,'” she said. “I just want to be treated like any other driver out there. Run me how you would anyone else, and that’s how I approach it,” she said.
Of course, there was a learning curve.
“Ooh, yeah, I was definitely scared, and I didn’t realize you had to keep your foot on the gas as you were going through corners. I was letting off going through ’em, and it didn’t work out for me, but I made the feature (that night),” she said.
Friday, she didn’t advance out of the B feature.
Zabel makes it back-to-back wins in Midwest mods
Selby’s Dawson Zabel keeps his lead on Sioux Falls’ Jake Wranek during the Midwest Modified feature Friday, June 26 at the Brown County Speedway. Zabel held off Wranek for the win. Aberdeen Insider photo by Robb Garofalo.
Dawson Zabel of Selby said he hoped his feature win on Friday, June 19 would give him momentum and confidence heading into the meat of the season.
Looks like it did.
Zabel took the lead in the Midwest modified feature with six laps to go and held on for his second-straight victory in Aberdeen.
“It seems like if you can get one (win) and a couple in a row, everything gets easier. The car feels better, the mindset’s better, just everything,” he said.
Zabel overtook Jake Wranek of Sioux Falls, who had led early.
“He kept running the bottom and, again, the bottom wasn’t good in turns one and two and I figured I could catch him coming out of two,” Zabel said. “When he decided to go to the top on (turn) three, he kind of left the door open for me, and I just took it.”
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Zabel said the lines he found to help the car were different, but came on successive turns.
“The top part of the track on turns one and two was really good,” he said. “It changed on turns three and four, though. The top got a little cruddy, and so I chose to go to the bottom. There was a lot of traction in those spots and made it shorter around the track.”
Aberdeen’s Raelyn Hadrick heads into the second turn during her INEX legends heat race Friday, June 26 at the Brown County Speedway. Aberdeen Insider photo by Robb Garofalo.
Aberdeen’s Hadrick getting early start in racing
Raelyn Hadrick’s first run at Brown County Speedway was a in a heat race Friday in the INEX legends division. She said she plans on a long racing career and figured it was a good time to begin — at age 12.
“I really wanted to do it. My grandpa raced a late model, so I always kind of wanted to try it,” she said.
Hadrick said she wanted to ease into her first race and had a plan for her first night.
“I knew I just wanted to run the bottom and the middle of the track,” she said. “It’s still a little scary going up near the top.”
Most racers her age and younger start in go-karts, but not Hadrick.
“I told my dad I wanted (a legends) car and he found one. He asked me and my sister if we both wanted to race, and we said yeah, so we got a car,” Hadrick said.
Her older sister Ashton also races legends, but not Fridays in Aberdeen because she works at the concession stand. But Raelyn said she’d like to challenge her sister at some point.
Raelyn Hadrick is a big fan of the Disney “Cars” movies, so she drives a blue car with the number 43 — a nod to the Dinoco Oil car in the movie series.
“Yeah, Lightning McQueen was taken already, so that’s why we went with the Dinoco car,” she said.
Hadrick said she doesn’t worry about being one of the youngest racers on the track.
“Not really. It’s just a lot of fun,” she said.
Friday’s feature race winners were:
- Sprint A feature: Kingshott.
- Sprint B feature: Zach Omdahl, East Grand Forks Minn.
- Midwest modifieds: Zabel.
- Legends: Dusty Mund, Lison N.D.
