My non-racing friends have asked me for years. Why do you like racing? Most know I am not into cars and the mechanics of them. I don’t have the talent to drive a race car and I am the first to admit that. Besides not having the talent, I don’t have the money, either. So knowing those things, why would a guy who has been going to races since he was 5-6 years old still like it so many years later? It’s hard to explain. I will admit in recent years, especially late in th

I like to write a little wrap up to the racing season each year, so here it is. This includes track champions of the tracks I cover, and I also want to thank my sponsors. I don’t know if this is the last RaceChaser blog post of 2026 or even for good. The future is undetermined at this point. Some racing highlights of 2026: Reid Randall of Park Rapids won three IMCA Hobby Stock track titles this summer: Buffalo River, Fix It Forward and Norman County. He finished second a

Lou’s Mad Town Showdown brought 132 cars to Madison Speedway for the first night of the season-ending doubleheader. I expected it to be a long night – Madison has never been known for running quick shows, plus having 132 cars in the pits naturally adds to it – and it was, concluding shortly before 1 a.m. The Wolverine Justin Vogel of Brooten took a big lead early in the Wissota Street Stock feature with Mike Jans of Clarkfield in second and Josh Long of Canby fighting Col

The Jamestown Stampede, in its 55th year, is the longest racing invitational in North Dakota. Many big names in North Dakota racing have won at the Stampede, including Mitch Johnson, Rick Aukland, Bob Sagen, Leo Burkhardsmier, Jack McDonald and John Corell. The weather dealt Jamestown officials a crap hand as drizzle/mist started to fall around 8 p.m., leading to a delay for more than an hour. A shoutout to all the cars who came out to pack during that time, by the way. Th

The 2026 Corn Cob Nationals champions were crowned on Sunday night at Buffalo River Speedway near Glyndon. It was a long night, not unexpected, with nine classes. I feel it is too many for a year-end race but so is eight classes, seven classes…I won’t belabor it. As a blogger I just don’t care for marathon racing programs — makes for a long long night for me. If you read the blog regularly you know where I stand. And for the purse that was offered, which was very good, I e

The Wissota 100 wrapped up by crowning five champions Saturday night at I-94 EMR Speedway in Fergus Falls. The weather made a mess of the week, not only at I-94 but at most tracks in the Midwest. In fact, tracks from Knoxville to Cedar Lake to Jackson to Deer Creek all cancelled this weekend with the rain. We need the rain badly up here in Fargo but it’s too late for a lot of the crops in the region. With the rain this week the track had some major holes to navigate but I t

If you were a sprint car fan, you had to love the River Cities Speedway lineup on Friday night with four classes of sprint cars running. I debated about covering remotely or not, but with the Wissota 100 Friday program raining out, I figured, what the heck, let’s give the “World Famous Legendary Bullring” one last shot for 2026. Sprint car shows, with the push starting, will take a bit longer and the final checkered waved about 10:42 p.m. There were a couple of red flags

James Taves of Glyndon had been out of racing for several years when his daughter, Ashley said she wanted to get into a race car herself a few years ago. He decided was time for a comeback. “I told my dad that I wanted to start, randomly, and he’s like ‘we’ll put you in a car,’” Ashley said. “And then he started racing again, too.” The two will be among the drivers competing at the Corn Cob Nationals this Saturday and Sunday at Buffalo River Speedway near Glyndon. Ashl

The Wissota 100 is set for this week at I-94 EMR Speedway in Fergus Falls. In the past I’ve written some previews about it, and picked winners (and aside from a few times, usually wrong); this year I won't make outright predictions, though. I’ll get to that in a minute, but I have a lot of my mind in terms of racing, including some things that bug me. The question comes up sometimes, what do you think of where racing is at right now? There’s some good. Some not. This bl

The 20th John Seitz Memorial wrapped up Saturday at River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks with the 92-lap late model feature highlighting the night. I don’t get why the stands aren’t fuller for this event with 71 late models signed in. There is no event in Wissota that draws that many late models, I suspect the Wissota 100 will be around 50. Plus, car counts were strong in other classes. The late model B mains, in terms of quality, looked like A mains at most tracks with

The pit area was packed at River Cities Speedway for Friday’s portion of the John Seitz Memorial. A total of 180 cars, led by a record 71 Wissota Late Models. With Friday mostly being heat races, which for practical reasons I usually don’t write about (The blog would be 4,000 words long), this will be more of a notebook as I enjoyed just walking around the pit area checking out the all the cars, which included drivers from five states and three Canadian provinces. Saturday’

The John Seitz Memorial is the premier late model event in Wissota, in my opinion, and is at River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks this weekend. The best part for me as a fan – only four classes! The trend at these invitationals is the opposite (for example, the Fall Classic will run 10 classes this year, which is ridiculous). But I’ll get into my thoughts on invitational racing later. The Prelude to the Johnny is on Thursday, which is the NLRA finale that pays $2,092 to wi

Fix It Forward Speedway in West Fargo concluded its 2026 season with the second night of the inaugural Minn-Kota cup. The first night of the Minn-Kota cup brought in 86 cars while Night 2 drew 73. One suggestion I would have for Fix It Forward Speedway managemnt – bump up the purse quite a bit for the Minn-Kota Cup and advertise it weeks in advance. There was a doubleheader for IMCA classes in Brainerd and a three-night show at Nodak Speedway in Minot they were up against

I decided a while back to take some of the Labor Day weekend off to watch some racing. I wanted to get out of town for a couple of days and see at least one night of late model racing, so I headed to Grand Rapids on Friday. I wanted to see my aunt and uncle who live on a lake near Brainerd as well, so I figured why not give North Central Speedway another look since I was in the area anyway. The 25th Mighty Axe Nationals brought in more than 150 cars and a nice crowd on a n

Trevor Walsh already has wrapped up one track championship this season in the Gen X Late Model class. By the time Labor Day weekend is over, he could have two more track championships added to his resume – and the Fast Threads Gen X Series championship. Walsh won the track title at I-94 EMR Speedway in Fergus Falls last week. He leads the points at Casino and Madison Speedways heading into season championships at those tracks this weekend; and is just one point behind Parker

If you have followed racing in the Red River Valley over the past 50-plus years, you know the last name Pavlicek. The Pavlicek racing tradition started in 1973 when Steve “Duffer” Pavlicek hopped behind the wheel of his first race car. He had a successful career that culminated in being elected into the Red River Valley Racing Hall of Fame in 2026. The family racing legacy is carried on by Steve’s son, Rich, who is in his 23rd year behind the wheel and Rich’s son Jayden,

Racing is a sport full of highs and lows. Brad Lorentz of Eagle Bend has seen both this season in his #36 Wissota Street Stock. The high for Lorentz came with the solid season he was putting together at Viking Speedway in Alexandria. Entering the Aug. 8 racing program, he was leading the points at Viking and in a close points race with J.J. Nieuwbeerta of Alexandria. He had recorded three top five finishes and nine top 10s in 10 feature starts and been a steady runner all s

Buffalo River Speedway in Glyndon held its season championship on Sunday night on a sticky evening. Buffalo River promoter Jason Berg said this week that Don Shaw, who owned I-94 EMR Speedway from 2020 until selling it this year, did some work reshaping the track earlier in the week. I know they’ve wanted to make the higher lane a more consistent option and are hoping some of the reshaping will do that. I personally felt the track was fairly racy for most classes and there

I don’t cover a lot of the national touring series while they are in the area, in large part because they have their own PR folks that cover them well, but with the World of Outlaw Sprint Cars less than 15 minutes from my house in West Fargo I figured what the heck. There was a great crowd on hand at Fix It Forward Speedway in West Fargo for the Danny Schatz Memorial, following a big crowd at River Cities Speedway on Friday. Donny Schatz of Fargo is a 10-time WOO Sprint

I-94 EMR Speedway in Fergus Falls wrapped up its 2026 regular season with another strong field of cars. I-94 has consistently been over 100 cars all year, and piled in 125 for their season championship night, setting up for a longer night. I think part of the reason for the car counts is some cars wanting to get laps on the track before the Wissota 100 in September. I-94 had 20 Wissota Late Models on hand, just one less than the 21 signed in at River Cities Speedway for