By NICK SCHWIEN

nschwien@dailynews.net

LA CROSSE -- The weight on Ray Seemann's shoulders kept getting heavier and heavier after each race.

But that's what tends to happen when you have a ton of oh-so-closes and a bunch of what-might-have-beens.

In fact, for the United Rebel Sprint Series 305 sprint car driver, it was about two years worth of those close calls.

"I was starting to wonder if we forgot how to win," Seemann said.

Seemann jogged his memory Saturday night during the URSS event in La Crosse during the Rush County Fair. The victory he secured late in the race on the 1/4-mile dirt oval was his first since July 4, 2007 -- more than two years of trying.

"It felt great to get that monkey off my back," he said. "We've been a solid top-five team for so long, but we just couldn't get it."

In the URSS, a driver earns a point average by his finishes in feature races. The better a driver finishes, the better his point average. With the inverted starting order -- meaning the best point averages of drivers who qualified from heat races start in rows five, then four, etc. -- the top drivers have to work that much harder to get to the front.

And Seemann was a driver who consistently was starting in the fourth or fifth row.

That was the case Saturday night in La Crosse -- although the Jetmore driver thought he had a better starting position that he actually did.

"I looked at the lineup sheet and thought we were starting outside the third row," Seemann said. "Then I got out there and realized we were outside the fourth row. I figured that first row would just jump on it and be gone."

One of the drivers on that front row did. Michael Williams started outside the first row and bolted to the lead at the drop of the checkered flag.

"Starting on the front row is always the best," Williams said. "But when you have guys like Ray Seemann and C.J. Johnson , especially for me, I know they're coming through the field."

C.J. Johnson, the national point leader entering the weekend, started inside the fifth row and eventually made his way up to third place behind Williams and Seemann when he got by Corey Lutters.

Williams diced his way through lap traffic as Seemann and Johnson closed the gap, working every inch of the track to move forward.

"When you're in lap traffic that deep, if you're not moving forward, you're getting passed," Seemann said about the trials of racing on a smaller, 1/4-mile track.

Williams led the first 23 laps of the 25-lap feature. But then Seemann and Johnson reeled in the Grainfield driver and went three-wide on the backstretch entering turn three.

Seemann came out of the corner with the lead.

"I knew they were going to come," Williams said. "I looked down at the water temp and it said 280 (degrees), and I said I'm not pulling off now. I screwed up on a lap car there, and Seemann got around me. Then C.J. stuck his nose in, and I didn't want to pinch him. But that was awesome."

Johnson eventually got by Williams for second as well, although with all the lap traffic, he wasn't sure who actually was leading.

"I thought Ray was leading and I was in second," Johnson said. "When we got by Williams, I realized he was the leader."

Paul Flynn got by Lutters at the end to claim fourth, and Jon Johnson was sixth in the caution-free feature. Willie Wynn was seventh, Smokey Fairbank was eighth, and Darren Bowman and Travis Decker rounded out the top 10.

Seemann and C.J. and Jon Johnson each won heat races.