1989 - Holzhausen too fast for Miller 100 field

Cedar Rapids, Iowa (June 6, 1989) - Steve Holzhausen had a hunch Tuesday night during the Miller 100 stock car race at Hawkeye Downs.

He had a hunch if he was patient he’d be all right when the checkered flag dropped on the annual race for charity.

“I more or less let Scott Hanson set the pace at the beginning,” he said after winning the feature before a crowd of more than 4,000 fans. “I figured why should I take a chance?

Butch Miller also had a hunch. He thought at first his was the fastest car in the ARTGO Challenge Series field. But he found out he was wrong.

“About 20 laps into the race, I thought our car was really hooked in,” Miller said. “At first, I thought we were the fastest car. Then I found out we were wrong. 

“He was just faster, plain and simple. He was by far the fastest car out there.”

Holzhausen, who said he gained valuable experience running on a similar track at the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway near his home in Bangor, Wis., led briefly early in the race and then took over for good on the 47th lap.

Miller, from Coopersville, Mich., started on the eighth row and made a steady climb until the 58th lap when he came back into contention in Holzhausen's rearview mirror.

“I passed 16 cars,” said Miller, the fast qualifier with an 18.361. “But I needed to pass one more.”

“I still took it easy in lap traffic,” Holzhausen said. “I didn’t want to tear it up. When we got clear sailing I tried to go a little faster. Lap traffic was bad tonight. It was pretty scary at times but we made it.”

“He was prepared,” Miller said. “He really knew what to do.”

“We run a lot of new tracks,” Holzhausen said. “A driver has to be able to communicate with his crew and we were able to do that today.”

“We’ve just got to go work a little harder,” Miller said.

Holzhausen said he thinks this might be the start of good things to come.

“We’ve been having some hard luck until last week,” he said. “We finally hit on a setup for the car that really seems to work.”

Rich Bickle of Edgerton, Wis., was third and Hanson fourth. Dick Trickle, the Winston Cup driver from Wisconsin Rapids, was second fast in time trials, but ran into trouble in the feature, completed just 91 laps and finished 16th.

Results –

1. Steve Holzhausen

2. Butch Miller

3. Rich Bickle

4. Scott Hansen

5. Steve Carlson

6. Joe Shear

7. Dave Klein

8. Dennis Lampman

9. Al Schill

10. George Prziborowksi

11. Tom Carlson

12. Todd Kropf

13. Kevin Cywinski

14. John Olson

15. Tim Fedewa

16. Dick Trickle

17. Bryan Reffner

18. Terry Baldry

19. Brian Johnson

20. Jeff Finely

21. Jim Weber

22. Jack Landis