After Shannon Mahlberg celebrated in victory lane, he headed to tech and found a surprise. His radiator was missing. The radiator-less win occurred in the IMCA sport compacts last Saturday at Shelby County Speedway in Harlan, Iowa.
As Mahlberg battled for the lead, a caution flew with six laps to go. The yellow waved for debris.
“I saw something dark on the track, but I could not tell what it was,” Mahlberg, of Dunlap, Iowa, said. “When we restarted, the field completed four laps and the red light came on for a rollover. That’s when I smelled oil.”
Because of the red flag, Mahlberg shut his car down near the fence.
“My brother Caine was on the outside of the track and he yelled out to me that a radiator hose was off,” said Mahlberg. “I told him I was going to pull in, but he yelled back, ‘No, there’s only two laps left. Go for it!’”
Mahlberg reasoned that he had a fair shot at success.
“My water temperature was 180° when we stopped for the red,” Mahlberg said. “That break brought the temperature down to 150°. My old Acura was performing like nothing was wrong.”
When the race restarted, another caution waved for a spinning car.
“The outside temperature was 45°, and I felt that if I had a blown radiator hose, I still could race through to the green-white-checkered finish,” said Mahlberg. “I was a little conservative in not pushing the Acura too hard, but I was able to get enough out of turn four to beat Jake [Paysen] at the finish line.”
When Mahlberg arrived in tech, the officials looked at his engine compartment in disbelief.
“[The officials] couldn’t believe what they saw, and I couldn’t believe it,” Mahlberg said.
After returning home, Shannon Mahlberg installed a new radiator and checked to see if he had a blown head gasket.
“It didn’t shoot out water when I started it, so I knew the head gasket and the engine were still good,” said Mahlberg. “An oil change and we are good to go. Thankfully, it was a cool night and we had all those stops before the end of the race.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
