For John Oeltjen, racing all about fun

One of the backbones of weekly racing has always been the budget racer. The one who is limited on what they spend in racing, who is a blown motor or wrecked chassis away from being done for the season, or perhaps for a couple of years.

Those drivers are in the pits every week. Winning and contending isn’t important to some of them, knowing others may have better equipment and more money invested in their race cars. Yet they are the ones many of us watched growing up.

John Oeltjen, 66, of Glenwood is one of those drivers.

Oeltjen races in the Wissota Modified class at Viking Speedway in Alexandria. He’s raced off and on at the half-mile oval since the 1970s. He’s in his third year back in the modifieds after a layoff of more than a decade. He is the elder statesman of the class at Viking, the last driver to have raced in the modified class in the late 1980s, when its popularity really took off in Alexandria.

If you are looking for drivers who piled up track championships and feature wins, Oeltjen would not be in that group. In fact, he was asked during this interview how many career wins he has.

“None,” Oeltjen said. “I’ve never won a feature.”

Don’t be misled – Oeltjen isn’t complaining or bitter about not reaching victory lane or winning any track championships. He finished second once to Scott Hillig years ago in a feature for his best finish.

But he’s also a self-built racer, a throwback to the way things were decades ago – building his own chassis and engines his entire career. He has not had the budget or car to compete with the top guns in the mod class.

“We don’t have the checkbook to do that,” Oeltjen said. “The money it takes to win in this class, you’re going to spend six figures. You’ve got to put new tires on every night -- I’m running used tires; I’ve got a friend who runs them on his car one night and he gives them to me.”

So what keeps a guy like John Oeltjen coming to the track weekly?

“We come here for fun,” Oeltjen said. “It it isn’t fun, we aren’t coming back.”

At a time when money has taken over in racing, where it at times seems like a spending contest to get to the front, Oeltjen's perspective is refreshing.

He retired after a 40-year career in construction several years ago.  His wife, Becky died in 2021 and was looking for something to occupy his time. He returned to driving briefly in each of the 2022 and 2023 seasons before racing on a little more regular basis in 2024.

“I’m retired, single now – you’ve got to have something to do,” Oeltjen said. “This is it.”

And the veteran modified pilot does enjoy the sport that has been part of his life for decades.  He enjoys building his own cars and engines and takes pride in that.

“I like working on them. I like tweaking on the car, trying to get it to work,” said Oeltjen, who joked that he couldn’t call his chassis builder for setup tips because he builds his own.

But there are other things that keep Oeltjen coming to the track. He likes the speed of the modified class, for starters.  But there’s also the friendships and camaraderie built in the pits over many decades around racing.

“You meet all the people again you haven’t seen in 10 years,” Oeltjen said. “Once you’re in that racing family, you’re always there.”

John Oeltjen turns 67 in August. He doesn’t contend for wins, but for him, racing has never been about winning. In fact there are fewer and fewer drivers in the pits who come to the track for the reason Oeltjen still does.

“I’m just here to have fun,” Oeltjen said. “Life’s short; enjoy it.”

Driver profile

John Oeltjen

Wissota Modified #43

Residence: Glenwood, Minn.

Age: 66

Sponsors: Bruns Racing Products (Danube), Wild Racing Shocks (Montevideo), Sparky’s BK Towing (Glenwood), CJ's Auto Detailing (Glenwood), Randy Powell @ RPM Graphics -Lincolnton, N.C.