SANDS TOWNSHIP — Week three at Sands Speedway is in the books with the track doing its part in the community once again.

Sunday’s program included the Drive for Diabetes Awareness benefiting the 16th Annual Teal Lake Swim coming up on July 27.

“The Teal Lake Swim is important,” said Sands Speedway public relations director Kim LeTourneau. “There’s a lot of families and children who come to the track. We met a lot of them last year and decided that if we supported them, the money becomes doubled. Every dollar raised here (today) becomes double for the swimmers.

“We feel that all the kids here need our support. We’ve done this two years in a row. We had stickers and t-shirts for sale and we raised 50/50 money for them. Everybody here believes in giving back. We probably have four to five charities per year and this is one of our passions because of the kids.”

The first Teal Lake Swim took place in 2004. Since then, the 2.25 water race has raised over $160,000 for the Upper Peninsula Diabetes Outreach Network.

Shifting from the cool waters to the warm asphalt, there was no shortage of exciting racing at the 1/4-mile oval.

All four feature races were action-packed and the day even included the annual King of the Hill Spectator Fast Lap Challenge, which allowed anyone with their regular vehicles to take a fast lap at intermission between heat and feature races.

Jim Chartier of Iron Mountain won that challenge with his V8 Camaro, coming in with a time of 19.669. Chartier had four challengers behind him, with Jeff Reno finishing second with a time of 21.593, Brandon Sorensen third with a time of 21.628, Anthony Conrad fourth with a time of 23.044 and Curt Clement fifth with a time of 24.868.

Todd Maki, Tom Waselesky, Ray Keskimaki and Charlie Bell were Sunday’s feature winners.

Maki padded his 4-Cylinder Modifieds class points lead with the win. He led Reece Cavin and Ryan Proctor with 207 points going into the weekend. Cavin and Proctor were tied for second with 194 points.

Maki started the 20-lap feature in sixth place on the outside of row three, forcing him to work his way to the front of the seven-car pack.

Maki took the lead off of turn four from outside polesitter Al Wendrick on Lap 10 and never looked back from there. Carter Adams finished second after passing Cavin with four laps to go. Cavin finished third.

After a Lap 1 caution in the 4-Cylinder Stock feature that saw Anthony Karnack turn Bill Hammond after a three-wide attempt in turn three, it was a two-car race when things went back to green.

Waselesky gained the lead on inside polesitter Dustin Livingston in turn one on Lap 4, and those two cars pulled away from the rest of the pack to make the battle their own.

Livingston gave it all he had, but was unable to catch Waselesky who cruised to the victory.

Livingston cruised to second with ease while Kathie Waselesky was third, followed by Tyler Hammond and Karnack.

Super Stock points leader Ross Olsen Sr. won both heat races over Ray Keskimaki, but it was Keskimaki who claimed the feature after Olsen had to pull off into the pits for a mechanical issue.

The Super Stock class was one man short today after Brett Wittler’s No. 64 car took a plunge into the woods off of turn three during time trials. While Wittler was unharmed, his day was done early.

Running with the Super Stocks was the experimental, fuel-injected Mustangs class, a three-car race between Victoria Hawley, Elliot Sampela and Al Wendrick.

Hawley swept the day, winning both heat races and the feature over the other two Mustangs.

Overall, it was Keskimaki finishing first, Hawley second, Wendrick third, Sampela fourth and Olsen fifth.

Sampela led Hawley in the points standings 151 to 139 going into the day.

The late models came down to the final few laps, with Charlie Bell and points leader Rob Goodwin going side-by-side for a whole lap after a restart. Bell finally cleared Goodwin in turn one with four laps remaining and held Goodwin off the rest of the way to earn the win.

The caution which led to that restart came at Lap 13 when Doug Larson spun out in turn four.

Putch Bentley was third followed by Larson and Derek Gauthier.

The 50th season of racing at Sands Speedway continues this Sunday with the Waselesky Memorial Race. The race is put on by aforementioned drivers Tom and Kathie Waselesky in memory of their father, an avid racer who supported both of them throughout their careers. Trophies, prizes and raffles will all be part of the Memorial Race.

Time trials begin at 1 p.m. with racing beginning at 2 p.m. General admission is $10. Seniors ages 60 and up are admitted for $7, teens ages 13-17 are $5 and a pit pass is $20. Children 12 and under are admitted for free.