The final wrap was put on the 60th season of racing action at Chateau Raceway this past Friday night, Nov. 17, as the 2017 awards banquet was held. Trophies were awarded to the top three drivers in the track's USRA Modified and Out-Pace USRA B-Mod divisions.

A rundown of the 2017 season showed just 11 shows were run with 10 other scheduled events being lost to weather-related issues.

A total of 226 drivers were entered at the pits over the course of the season with 79 of those drivers picking up at least one victory on the season in either a heat race or feature event. That figures out to better than one-third of the drivers that got to see the checkers falls for them at least once during the year in the combined 205 events that were run.

The USRA Modified track champion was also the Summit USRA Weekly Racing Series national champion for 2017. Jason Cummins of New Richland ran away with the title as he claimed eight of the track's feature wins during the season and backed that up with six heat wins. It was his fourth track championship at the Lansing, Minn., having also topped the field in 2010, 2011 and 2016 as well. The final national points showed Cummins with 44 USRA-sanctioned shows, 20 feature wins and 34 top-five finishes.

Finishing second in points was Greg Pfeifer Jr. of Austin who had one feature win on the year. It was Pfeifer’s best finish in the class after moving up from Midwest Mods a few years ago. Pfeifer was a three-time track champion in that class, winning those titles in 2005, 2011 and 2012. Former track champion from 2015 in the class, Darwyn Karau of Kasson took home the third-place hardware for the season. He finished among the top five in points in each of the last five years including runner-up in 2014.

Final point standings for the Out-Pace USRA B=Mods showed Kadden Kath of Owatonna on the top of the list for the second time in his career. Kath, who also took the title for the class in 2013, led the division with five feature wins to go along with three heat race wins.

Finishing second was Jayden Larson of Mankato who is in his third year of racing in the class. It’s the best finish so far for Larson who had finished eighth and ninth in points the last two years. Matthew Brooks of Austin, who moved up from the Pure Stock class this year after taking track championships in that division in 2013 and 2015, had a solid season to round out the top three.

The track announced that the 2018 schedule will be out before the end of the year. Fans can look for the schedule to be posted on the Chateau Raceway website and also on Facebook in the coming weeks. But with no real changes expected, fans can likely look forward to a test 'n' tune event in early April with a full slate of Friday night racing to take them through the summer and up through Labor Day Weekend.

If action from this past season, with constant two-, three- and sometimes four-wide racing, fans can look forward to the 62nd Anniversary season of its debut in 1956, and 61st season of action (track did not run 1984) being action that they want to be in the stands for every Friday nIght.