By Jerry O’Brien
7-22-16
Five new members of the AMSOIL Speedway Hall of Fame were inducted on
Friday July 22nd in a ceremony held at the Curling Club building located on the
Head of the Lakes Fairgrounds. During the 14th annual edition, a buffet dinner was
provided by Kurtz Catering and the new Hall of Fame members were inducted in a
private ceremony, by invitation, for current Hall of Fame members and their
guests.
The new inductees were then toured the track in a pair of convertibles furnished
by HoF member Jack Hunker from his extensive car collection. They ended up in
Victory Lane where they were introduced to the fans. The tradition continued as a
five sections of the speedway grandstands are named for the incoming class and
will stay in place until the next inductees are named.
The AMSOIL Speedway Hall of Fame has three categories, Retired Drivers,
Pioneer/Achievement and Active Driver. Two years ago the Retired Driver portion
of the list was split into two sections. The first covers the years 1962-1988, the
next 1989 to the present. Voters pick two from section one and one from section
two. The total inductees in any given year should be five.
For the 2016 edition the first section inductees were Warren Carlson and Rick
Egersdorf and the section two nominee was Mike Meger. In the Pioneer/
Achievement section track announcer, entrepreneur and all around Character Clark
Brown was nominated and the 2016 Active Driver nominee was Scott Lawrence.
In order to be eligible for the Active Driver award you must be 50 years old or
older and still racing.
The late Warren Carlson did his racing in the mid ‘60’s and won a feature and
some heats. A racing crash and roll over prompted him to give up the driving and
use his considerable mechanical ability to work on other cars. At one time he
worked on six cars including those of Hall of Fame members Jack Hunker and
Harlow Filteau as well aas Billy Stuart, Wayne Wenske, Rick Sundet and Jim
Hunker. Warren passed away at age 43 from complications from ALS. His wife
Bonnie Carlson accepted the crystal trophy along with their four sons and other
family members.
Rick Egersdorf was a frequent visitor to the speedway, especially when the big
money races were on the line. Ricked with car owner Craig Geller for many years
in the orange #17 Late Model. At the speedway he won four weekly feature races,
won the Late Model Invitation in 1983 and the then named Super Superior Classic
now known as the Northern nationals. He also won the WISSOTA Qualifier for
the WISSOTA 100 back in 1988. Rick was on hand with his family to accept his
award.
Mike Meger joined his Dad Andrew “Skip” Meger in the Hall of Fame. Mike
raced the #2 Modified with Skip while he was still in highschool. He raced at the
speedway during the brief time that the Cook Family from the Cedar Lake
Speedway were also promoting the newly named Superior Speedway. In 1989 the
Cooks imported what they called the CLS Late Model to replace the Super Stocks.
A few racers built these cars including Mike. He did wellin the class with some
heat and feature wins. The class never took off here and were soon dropped as the
Super Stocks were reinstated. Mike’s car was converted to a Late Model which he
raced for several seasons winning some heats and a feature. He always ran the #2
carrying on the family number.
Clark Brown was the announcer at the speedway as well as at several other area
tracks for a number of seasons. He was great friends with Hall of Fame member
and long time track flagman, Art Johnson. In the beginning the roles were reversed
as Art was the announcer and Clark was the flag man. He worked in Duluth, MN.
For the then Willcol Ambulance Service.
Clark was a great character in an era filled with characters.
At the then Tri-State Speedway, everything was done from a structure in the
infield and flagging was done right down on the track. Clark would sit on an
actual tree stump and call the races. Once a car slammed into the structure sending
Clark flying ultimately uninjured.
Unfortunately doing due diligence failed to find any information on Clark
Brown, wife, children or any other family, even an original home town.
Scott Lawrence was named to the Hall of Fame as the Active Driver. He just
turned 50 years old and has quite an impressive record that is still ongoing. He
started his racing career at age 18 back in 1985 in a Chevy that he bought from
another competitor for $125. He proceeded to win the so called Bomber
championship in his rookie season and was off and running. The Bombers evolved
into the WISSOTA Street Stock over the years and Scott won nine track titles in
that division: 19 85, ‘86, ‘89, ‘92, ‘94, ‘95, ‘96, ‘98 and 1999. ‘99 was also the
year he was WISSOTA National Street Stock Champion with 37 feature wins over
all. He also won two Northern Nationals Street Stock titles. His total feature wins
in the division was 48.
He moved up to the WISSOTA Super Stock division and has recorded 27
feature wins at the speedway, the last, thus far, coming just a few weeks ago. He
has three Super Stock track championships at his home track: 2009, 2012 and
2015 and has won the division three times at the Northern Nationals.
He raced on Hall of Fame night, led some laps before finishing
third in the
feature.
