Late model veteran Corbett aims to keep momentum going after big win

Grand Forks veteran late model pilot Ryan Corbett admits his season has had some ups and downs so far.  But a phone call might have nudged his season in the right direction.

Driving a new MB Customs car, he called Mark Gerth of CMD shocks last week to talk about the setup on his #50 machine. The next night, he won the $2,500 to win late model special at Dead Horse Creek Speedway, beating the likes of Ricky Weiss, Shane Edginton and Mike Balcaen in the process.

“I have the consistency of the stock market - up and down from lap to lap. If features were 8 laps I might have a couple more wins,” Corbett said. “I did talk to Mark Gerth from CMD shocks about the new car for 25 minutes; the conversation went pretty good. The very next night I ended up winning the $2,500 at Dead Horse Creek Speedway.”

The feature win was his first since 2020 for the 50-year-old, who competes at River Cities Speedway and some NLRA shows in the region, and Corbett is hoping it’s a sign of things to come. He does have three top five finishes in six starts to start the 2025 campaign.

   Following in the footsteps of his grandfather and father, Corbett started his career way back in 1994, racing in the modified class at now-defunct tracks in Langdon and Hamilton.

“My grandpa raced, my dad raced,” Corbett said. “Everybody races then, right?”

He is known locally mainly for his time in the late model class, but in 2000, he hopped behind the wheel of a sprint car.

“Sprints are still a thrill, but I’m too old for that now,” Corbett said. “I look inside those sprints now, I don’t know if I’d ever get back out. It was such an adrenaline rush to run those, that it didn’t matter where you finished.”

He won an NLRA Late Model event in 2002 and raced for a few years before taking some time off while he children were younger.  But he made his return in 2013 in the Wissota Late Model class.

“I got back into it to have a little fun,” Corbett said. “All of a sudden, you get competitive, and you want to get back up front again. It’s kind of a vicious circle.”

Corbett has three NLRA Late Model feature wins in his career, the most recent coming in 2020 at Greenbush Race Park.  

“They’re fun cars,” Corbett said. “They’re so challenging; you’re off a little bit, then you’re 10 spots off from where you the week before.”

In 2024, he had a solid season with six top five finishes, with a best feature finish of second on May 31. But he also had a nasty rollover during a special event at Ogilvie, and while he walked away uninjured, his car was badly damaged.

“I couldn’t keep it down on the low side,” Corbett said. “We could have hit a 1,000 different places and it would have never happened. It’s just a bad incident. I was lucky.”

He owns and operates a trucking company that hauls for road construction in Grand Forks.

“We get busy right when racing starts, so it doesn’t make sense to do it,” Corbett said. “But I don’t like snowmobiles, it’s too cold out.”

He takes racing year-to-year at this point and hinted earlier this season that 2025 could be his last.   But there is still enjoyment in racing for Corbett, who is in his fourth decade of racing.

“I like coming to BS with everybody, and it gives you something to do,” Corbett said. “As weird as it sounds, I might be more motivated to work on them than I do enjoying the racing part of it. It keeps a guy moving.”

Driver Profile

Ryan Corbett

Wissota/NLRA Late Model #50

Age: 50

Residence: Grand Forks, N.D.

Sponsors: United Valley Bank, Crary Realtor Jess Rice, S & S Transport, Home Grown Goat Milk by Greg Friestad, Corbett Trucking,llc, CHS AG