Upcoming festivities at Norway Speedway will including honoring Joseph Testolin, who has worked at the local raceway for 45 years. (Photo courtesy of Lia Olson)

NORWAY — So many great things have happened in the last couple of weeks at Norway Speedway. I’m kind of overwhelmed as an amateur sportswriter.

But I’m going to start out with Greg Haese winning the feature a week back and having one of the best victory lane celebrations I’ve seen in a while that featured racing legend Steve Bricker and his labradoodle in Victory Lane. Those guys travel from Manitowoc every week and don’t complain about anything. They just race hard and go home.

That same night quite possibly the most popular driver at our track Tony “Rocket” Wender did an amazing job holding off our current point leader Joey Pontbriand in a finish that will never soon be forgotten. I’ve been in this sport for a long, long time — close to 50 years to be honest — and it’s very inspirational to me to see all the smiling faces of the drivers, teams and their families in Victory Lane.

This past week Scott Stanchina, who I pegged as a dark horse potential Norway Speedway champion, is kind of settling into his spot at the top of the championship points standing with a 16-point margin over Braison Bennett. Jason Wells is right there as well.

As a driver at this point in the season you’re really not focused on garnering points as you are racing hard and avoiding DNF’s either by mechanical failure or crashing.

Tim Schultz Jr. came back with a throwback paint scheme to honor his father ,who was a star in the 1980s and 90s, and has recently been selected to the Norway Speedway Hall of Fame. Tim Schultz Sr. and I were raised under the same roof and our racing days started when we were teenagers. We were a good combination.

I was kind of good at welding and fabricating, and he was kind of good at making our engines run well. “Big Timmy” isn’t getting into the Hall of Fame just because of his racing skills out on the track, but he was a very colorful, helpful and generous competitor in the pit area and he was liked by all and still is. I saw him walking through the pit area one night and he was hollering out to the teams on both sides of the pit area, “Get out of my way! I am dropping the blade and I am coming through.”

None of us knew whether to laugh, or be worried, but it’s definitely legendary.

Timmy Jr. left his baseball coaching career last Friday for one night and him and Joey Pontbriand raced side-by-side clean and had the fans on the edge of their seats. It was a great show.

In the 141 Auto Stock Car division for the 3rd week in a row, Joe Ostermann’s ability out in the third and fourth groove put him in a position to win another feature event. He was running side-by-side with former track champion BJ Schoneck when a caution flew with one lap to go.

One of the Speedway’s bright and up and coming stars Parker Summerfield and his fuel injected Mustang hooked the edge of the asphalt and got into a terrifying crash hitting the flag stand. Fortunately, the flag stand was well built and protected our flag men and Parker’s car protected him as well. It was a great job for our membership to be innovative and move the flag stand to the back stretch where Mike Majkrzak controlled the race from a different vantage point.

Everyone will be back. The race was not restarted, and BJ Schoneck was deservingly crowned the winner.

Cole Brown won his first MC Signs and Graphics Fab 4 Feature event.

Wisconsin Sport Trucks came back in full force with Brad Barglind continuing with his winning ways.

This week we have all of the Hall of Famers going in and there will be an autograph session, some vintage mods, and a big celebration on the front stretch for all of them at contributed to the speedway and the sport.

We are also going to have a short presentation recognizing one of our Hall of Famers that has worked at the speedway in the same capacity for 45 years. Joseph Testolin who has mastered the fine art of hand scoring race cars, not only at our track but other tracks as well. He’s putting down his clipboard and his 14-inch-long pieces of paper with columns for the last time this Friday night.

Testolin and his position has quietly been replaced by electronic technology, as all the cars have electronic transponder, that record their laps. Testolin’s new position with the speedway is VIP Ambassador. He will be in a golf cart, meeting and greeting our amazing sponsors, as well as traveling from the front gate to the back gate to Legends Row and keeping tabs and helping out in all phases of the speedway.

This Friday night’s Hall of Fame-Allan Yelle Memorial Race and Veteran’s Appreciation Night brought to you by Sayklly’s Candies.

See you at the races!