By ANDREW HINKELMANThe Daily Inter Lake

The 2004 racing season at Raceway Park comes to a close Saturday, as all seven classes will race in the season championship.

Rain washed out the last two weekends of competition, but the forecast is favorable for the finale.

"It's going to be a miracle," Raceway Park co-owner Michelle Siderius said. "The weather has played a big factor in this year. We've had five official rainouts and 16 Saturday's we've had rain.

"It's been one fo the worst weather situations in the last 14 years."

But with the weather woes hopefully behind them, Raceway Park will stage its own version of a championship chase.

In five of the seven classes, first and second place are separated by 11 points or less. Gene Streitz leads the Compact division by six points over Tyler Irwin; Eric Brechel is up five points on Micah Sampson in Flathead Legends; Dirk Lybeck and Danny Morris are just six points apart in the Limited Sportsman; Rocky Erickson trails Cory Wolfe by five points for the Super Late Model title; and Chuck Weich leads the Formula 1 Indys by 11 points over Don Staggs.

Derek Brooks and Dan Sagen have more comfortable 40-plus point leads in Compacts and Hobby Stocks.

"It's pretty much going to be the best racing of the year because of how close they are in the standings," Siderius said. "It's going to dictate who gets the money and the trophy.

"When these guys are two or three points away, it gets pretty hectic."

Fans can expect a busy evening, with time trials starting at 6 and racing at 7.

"We had to pack everything into one night," Siderius said. "We won't hold a halftime. With our trophy dashes, we're going to do rolling starts and introduce them as the race goes along."

Saturday's events cap Siderius' first year as co-owner of the track, along with her sister and brother-in-law, Marie and Aaron AuClaire, after taking over operations from their parents.

"It's been great," Siderius said. "Our big races were all huge successes, a lot of fans, especially from out of town.

"We've had a lot of new drivers coming in to the racing family, so that's been fun to see.

"We hope to go out with a big bang."

Also this weekend Raceway Park is introducing its newest class of car, Bandolero, to start racing next spring. The car is for kids age 8-14 and is a scaled-down version of a NASCAR ride.