Jamestown Speedway kicked off its 2026 season on Saturday with 107 cars, plus 10 Junior Slingshots, in attendance. The spring weather, or lack of spring I should say, is doing tracks zero favors right now. I visited with Jamestown promoter Tim Baldwin who said Jamestown got 3/4-inch of rain on Friday afternoon/evening. The sun did not come out til the afternoon on Saturday and it left the infield and quite a bit of the pit area muddy. Considering the weather, it wasn’t s

I am going to say it outright – blogging about racing is good for my mental health. Let me explain. This blog will have a little different tone to it than others in that it won't focus on the actual action on the track. Some might ask what prompted me to even write this type of blog. It’s because mental health needs to be talked about. Stigmas need to be removed. We have too many people suffering in silence, and we've had too many people fight that battle and lose. I get

River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks held opening night of the Wayne Anderson Cup on Thursday. The move to Thursday will end up being a wise one as almost every Friday track regionally (I-94 EMR, Dacotah and Fix It Forward Speedways) has already been cancelled with rain and cool temps in the forecast. The INEX Legends joined the four regular RCS classes on Friday. One of the things I’ve liked as a fan about RCS is they’ve normally stayed at four classes for their weekly pr

Fergus Falls Wissota Hornet driver Zander Zuehlsdorff has goals for the 2026 season, and one is pretty simple: “Keep it on all fours,” Zuehlsdorff said. “I haven’t been very good at that the few years.” The 18-year-old, a recent graduate of Underwood High School, is in his fourth year in the Wissota Hornet class. He’s also rolled his car four times in his young career. He’s thinking he is due for some better luck this summer. “I’m hoping this year I am,” Zuehlsdorff s

Tony Miller spent many years racing enduros, and was attending the races at Casino Speedway on a regular basis when a suggestion was made. “I was down here watching the races with Ron Anderson and he said, ‘you come here all the time, you might well have a car,’” Miller said. “We found a car for me, and I’ve been coming ever since.” Miller, from Browns Valley, Minn. (located in western Minnesota on the MN/South Dakota border), is in his sixth year in the Wissota Street Stock

The Jeff Hinkemeyer Memorial kicked off the 2026 season at Viking Speedway. The Structural Buildings Wissota Late Model Challenge Series was on hand for the first and only time at the half-mile with a solid 32-car field on hand. The night was in honor of Jeff Hinkemeyer, a Viking Hall of Fame member and many time late model track champion, who passed away from lung cancer earlier this spring. He was a very well-known late model driver in central Minnesota for a long time. One

River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks opened the 2026 season on a breezy Friday night. Yep, it was windy. Again. I am 3-for-3 on wind races so far. The wind did RCS folks no favors, leading to a challenging night of track prep – not to mention the wind was blowing straight into the stands. It even impacted the order of the racing – the NOSA Sprints, with their wings, heats were held AFTER the Wissota Street Stock and Midwest Modified features, and after intermission because of

Veteran driver Dave Mass of East Bethel enjoyed some success in his first years in a Wissota Late Model, including track championships at I-94 EMR Speedway in 2020 and 2021. When 2025 rolled around, he set another goal – to win his first Structural Buildings Wissota Late Model Challenge Series race. He did that – twice. Not only did he win two races, he also was crowned the series champion for the first time in his three-decade career. Mass topped Shane Sabraski by 25 points

I made it to Casino Speedway in Watertown for opening night on Sunday with 72 cars signed in. As I’ve said I won’t be evaluating car counts in my recaps until we get past Memorial Day (I know several who are not ready), nor will I focus much on track conditions this early in the year as I have yet to see a perfect racetrack during an opening night of a track. We need to get into the season for a good 3-4 weeks before I make much of the track conditions unless it is a total p

I-94 EMR Speedway kicked off the 2026 season with 125 cars on hand. The weather did not deal I-94 an ideal hand – a gusty northwest wind was present throughout the evening, and rain would eventually become a factor to shorten the night. The Wissota Modified feature got about four laps in with Tyler Peterson of Hickson (TPO) leading Talan Thoennes of Nelson for the top pot before the rain started to fall. The Wissota Modified, Wissota Late Model and Wissota Hornet features wil

I’ve mentioned my late father’s influence on my love for racing in previous blogs. But my mom deserves some blame, I mean credit, for my interest in racing. And with Mother’s Day coming up on Sunday I felt like writing about my mom. Ever have that parent who in some ways you were so much alike that you butted heads? That’s my mom and I. We are both anxious people, can get stressed easily and when folks like that are around each other, well, you butt heads and drive each oth

The big news in area racing this week was the official announcement that I-94 EMR Speedway in Fergus Falls has been sold. Don Shaw made a Facebook post on Monday on the I-94 page making the announcement that James Trantina III has purchased the facility. Shaw said he will remain co-promoter with Deb Engfer for the 2026 season, still involved with the weekly operations of the track. In the Facebook post, Shaw mentioned a few reasons for the sale – one, finding someone to keep

Fiesta City Speedway in Montevideo opened its 2026 season on a cool May evening with 89 cars signed in. I mentioned in a recent Facebook post, I will be covering tracks mainly within a 150-mile radius of Fargo; however, I do want to hit the tracks in my home area some, too, which would include Fiesta City and Madison, two tracks I went to as a kid. I grew up 15 minutes from Fiesta City and my parents ran the track there for three years in the early 1990s.Thanks to presenting

Laine Schwehr’s life changed in a matter of seconds last September. He rolled his No. 56 Wissota Late Model hard while leading a heat race at the Jamestown Stampede. The result of the crash was a broken neck and compressed spine. And after he was airlifted to Fargo, as he was being examined for feeling in his arms and legs, a neurosurgeon offered a potential prognosis. He had no feeling below the chest as the doctor examined him. “I said, ‘just don’t sugar coat it,’” Schwehr

When I was a kid in the 19—s, well let’s say a few years ago, I couldn’t wait for race season to start. As far I was concerned, racing could start at the beginning of May and then go to September and it still wouldn’t be enough. Of course, I was not paying the bills – my dad paid my way in for many years (and paid for the gas to get to the track), and I wasn’t a car owner/driver who spent a lot of time and money keeping their cars on the track. My attitude on that has changed

One of the most popular phrases in today’s world is “downsizing” and most of the time it has a negative connotation. In the corporate world it usually means a bunch of people losing their job, sadly. There are other examples of there being fewer in our world. There are less potato chips in a bag than ever. Restaurant portions are smaller. There simply aren’t as many M&Ms in a bag anymore (trust me, I know). Parking spaces seem even smaller, even with more SUVs and trucks on

My dad suggested I start this blog in 2017. He said you go to the races anyway; you keep track of the results…why not write about it. So I gave it a try. In his final years, his lung disease prevented him from going to the track in person, so I provided texts of the races I went to to keep him connected a little bit. He never got to see the blog grow, unfortunately, as he died on Sept. 2017. Not many nights happen in racing when I don’t think of him, as my devotion and love

I went to Aberdeen, S.D., last weekend to watch a Minnesota State Moorhead football game at Northern State. On the drive there I was thinking that a majority of my previous trips to the Hub City have been for racing, aside from a few MSUM softball trips where I had to stat the games. I had a lot of windshield time and it got me thinking about what I truly like about racing, or what keeps me motivated to keep blogging. The obvious things come up – the competition on the track,

Close finishes like this at Viking remain a great part of racing. Collin Nelson Photo/Outlaw Action Photography With the Gopher State Showdown at I-94 EMR Speedway wrapping up the season in local racing, I’ve been doing some reflecting. I watched some of the Gopher Showdown online, and sadly there were some torn-up race cars – but unfortunately that happens during invitational season when you get so many people who do not race against each other on a regular basis. From a

Most likely, barring a change of heart, the RaceChaser blog race reports and feature stories are done for 2025. I may do a few editorials...