I began my racing career in 1983, Brother, Randy was already racing a 66 Ford Galaxy in what we call the hobby stock class.

He helped a gentlemen that I never really met or knew put a cage in another hobby stock in a 1972 Ford Torino that had a 351 W . Well, one day the car was setting behind the shop my dad was renting with two other welders at the time. Looking at the car, I had asked Randy, “Who’s car is that” He replied, “Some guy who left town”

I went to look at the car and it wasn’t really pretty to say the least, already all beat to shit, no racing seat, they had used a bucket seat. Randy says ” If you wanna race, here ya go”. Pop the hood, no carb, where’s the carb? Randy says ” they had one from Kihle’s, you might want to go get it back” Got the carb back, got the car running, bought a used race seat and I was set.

Here I am, an opportunity to race, but a couple of road blocks, no truck, no trailer, no race suit and…yup no money really to get into this addiction of racing. Thats right, I was about to go racing on unemployment checks, that didn’t sit well with the folks, especially dad, but I was determined.

I rounded up enough money to buy a pickup, 76 Ford 1/2 ton regular cab, with a 390. was able to use dads trailer. Now to find a suit and a helmet. Good friend of dad’s, Orlin Breiland gave me his old race suit, fit almost perfectly because we were about the same size at the time. Used an open face helmet and put a full clear face shield on it, really don’t know how the hell that helmet passed inspection. In fact, we were racing in Lambert MT and I was trying to pull a tear off and the whole face shield came off the helmet, so I had no protection from the mud last couple of laps, I was pissed at that thing.

I made it through the first year, despite the fact dad was not really to thrilled I was racing, the reason for that will be revealed later on. The first year was just to get seat time and get the feel of things, to my surprise I was able to finish 4th overall in points, while Randy took the Championship that year. I really couldn’t even blow the motor up if I want to, the valve springs were so wore out they floated out kinda like a govenor on a kids go kart.

1984

Got through the first year, alright good, keep the car, get more seat time again before move on to different car was the plan. But this year, had different strategy how to afford the race car and keep racing. Club took different approach towards the hobby stock class in 1984 and decided that points will go to the car, no matter who was driving. so I teamed up with Don Benth, we were to take turns driving every race night. I started night one.
I had made the trophy dash through the heat, think I started 2 row behind Mark Neu. Mark jumped out to the lead with my in hot pursuit. This particular evening it was very sunny out so going into turn 3-4 you got the big ol sun directly into your eyes. In this trophy dash, a new driver had made the race, started last and was having trouble and fell way behind us to the point me and Mark were about to lap him in, at the time i couldn’t see him because I was behind Mark, we headed into turn 3, all I can see is the sun glare off Marks back chrome bumper, he makes a hard jerk to the left like he’s spinning out, what he did was avoid the car that was about to be lapped but he spun out in the middle of 3-4 which I nailed him pretty much on the throttle with no where to go. Pretty hard hit. Car died right there and then. Next thing I know, Ralph Lockwood, the announcer, was standing next to the car lean in asking if I was alright. How the fudge does an announcer up in the tower be the first one to my car???

For those of you that don’t know how the old track was configured, the announcers were in the tower that was in the infield of the race track across from the grandstand, along with the lap counters and the flagman.

Brought the car back to the pits, crew was looking it over to see if I could get back out, they just took the hood off because it no longer sat on the car properly, so just try and run the dash without the hood but it was a no go, too much damage, and car wouldn’t start and we later discovered the frame was bent. Car was history.

Monday morning, we head to the junk yard, find a car, bring it back to the shop, at the time, we had a shop where we had two stalls, we put a car in each stall, new car in one, the wreck race car in the other. To make long story short, with the effort of about 5 guys, every night of the week, late hours, we had successfully swapped everything from one car to the other, running, painted and ready to race, in fact, we had the sponsors hand lettered painted on the car was still tacky when we hit the track that following week, Talk about dedication and determination and being young, made a difference, blows my mind thinking about it. But we wanted to race.

After my incident, the club decide that there needs to be more safety protocols in place to warn drivers of impending cars stalled or wrecked sitting in hams way on that the track. They had red and yellow lights in each corner al with officials on ground level in the corners with yellow and red flags. And to be honest I had no idea that car I hit was sitting there, we already had passed the flagman with the green being displayed, so how were we suppose to know? There were no race receivers back in the day like there is now to warn drivers to slow down or stop.

Don and I would eventually go on to finish 4th for the ’84 season

I sat out the ’85 race season because of college

Don and Dean teamed up to race the ’85 season and I became a pitman.

1986

1986 saw me back in my own car, Don and Dean continued to pilot the 180 machine, I was forced to pick differnt number and went with dads original race number 190. Randy was running that number in the street/hobby, he moved up to what was called the super stocks and ran the number 90. The 1986 season was kinda experimental as we ran a boat with a 400, lets just say, wasn’t a good combination, I didn’t run all that well that year, no wrecks, just car was too heavy for what we were competing against at the time. Not even sure where I finished in 1986, sold the car. Since was done with college, to make money, I worked at our family restaurant which we had started the winter of ’86. Worked as a dishwasher and later moved up to prep cook

1987-88

Randy was running a ’66 Comet in the super stock class, the club had chosen to bring in the Dakota Modfiied class, which Randy decided to try. I became the owner of the ’66 Comet to run the the street class, Don went out on his own a got a 67 cougar. Car was somewhat ok, but didn’t have power steering and handled different in each corner. I managed to place runner up in the first half points standings both years, 1987-88 but never able to keep the runner up spot at the end of the year, had good point battle those years. Don on the other hand was able to capture the championship titles. These were my very trying years due to work, many saturdays night I had to work right AFTER racing, as I was working the 10 pm-6AM Shift as the main line cook. In fact I had to leave right after I ran my feature and let the crew get the car back to the shop! The ’66 Comet would be the last hand me down used car I would run

1989-90-91-92-93

Saw me sitting on the fence and taking it easy and help Randy run the Dakota Mod.

1994

The race track was shut down this year due to the fact that the fair board want to build a new facility that would not make if feastable to have a track that close to the new build so the flatten the race track, the club would be in a dispute with the fair board over relocating the track elsewhere on the grounds. Fair board want a pretty lavious contract for the club to sign, but the club voted it down. Track was eventually built in the location it is in now after some other individuals took on the fair board contract.

1995

Track reopened and took on the Wissota sanction, I decided to race and told Randy I want a brand new car from the ground up. After studying the rules, we opt to run a 1979 2 door LTD powered by a 351W in the street class. This car ended up being the best car I have ever driven, I took it to victory lane 6 times and came away with the Track Championship. I ran the car again in 1996 being the stupid idiot, I opt not to refresh the engine, lets just say I didn’t do to well, all I could muster was a 4th place finish in point, the plus was the car was always in one piece, so thats good right? I sold the car to Randy Walters after the ’96 season, not knowing what I wanted to do, I would not race again till 2001