The John Holtger Racing Team had their 1st Lucas Oil Midwest race of 2019, kicking it off at the “Big House” in Crandon, WI! John was registered to race in both the Mod Kart class and the Sportsman Stock SXS class Saturday & Sunday, so it was a busy weekend!
It wouldn’t be a normal “spring” race in Crandon without rain…and it rained all day Friday! This caused practice to be cancelled and delayed the race schedule on 
Saturday. John started Saturday’s events off with his debut in the Sportsman Stock SXS race. The race began with Crandon’s legendary “Land Rush Start” and John in 2nd place out of 39 drivers! Crashes caused a 2×2 rolling restart based on a card draw, which had John starting in the 3rd row. After 3 laps he had made his way to the front. John held off the pack with 5 restarts to finish the race with his 1st Sportsman SXS win!!
Saturday afternoon John was lined back up for the Mod Kart race. Returning as the 2018 MW Mod Kart Champion, John was ready to give it all he had! Once the green flag dropped, John took the #1 spot to lead the race. At the halfway point, John was still leading the pack with an 8 second gap on the #222 truck in 2nd! John was able to end the race taking 1st place!
Sunday turned out to be another weather perfect day, and was off to a great start for the John Holtger Racing Team! John battled it out again in the Mod Kart class and was able to sweep the weekend with another back to back 1st place win! 
Later Sunday afternoon John got ready to try and repeat his win in the Sportsman Stock SXS race! As all 39 drivers line up there was a 12 car inversion pushing John to the 6th row. He was able to work his way up to the top 5 at one point, but then got clipped by another driver and spun out, which caused him to fall to the back. John didn’t make it to the podium for this race, but still had a fun time battling with the other 38 drivers on the track and got back up to finish the race in the 15th spot! 
Overall this was a very successful kick off weekend in the Lucas Oil Midwest Short Course League! John was able to take home (3) 1st place trophies and is leading the Mod Kart class in points as the defending champion!
Stay tuned for a busy month of racing coming up in July!!
