By Ben Deatherage
MINOT, N.D. (Jun. 12, 2025) — With rain washing out the finale at Nodak Speedway, the 2025 Tougher Than Dirt Tour wrapped up following Saturday night’s action at Thunder Mountain Speedway in Bottineau. The tour saw five nights of racing across North Dakota and one in the province of Saskatchewan.
For the first time in the 10-year history of the series, both champions hailed from the “Land of the Living Skies,” making it a landmark year for Canadian competitors.
Runge Earns First SportMod Title
Leevi Runge from Lampman, Saskatchewan, claimed the Karl Chevrolet IMCA Northern SportMod championship after a consistent and powerful week. He kicked things off with a 10th-place run at McLean County Speedway on June 3, then earned his first-ever Tougher Than Dirt Tour win the following night at Southwest Speedway.
Runge followed with back-to-back runner-up finishes at Williston Basin Speedway and Estevan Motor Speedway, before closing the week in triumph by winning the $2,000-to-win Robbie Conway Memorial on June 7 at Thunder Mountain Speedway.
Chad Strachen, of Minot, finished second in the standings. Despite missing the event at Dickinson, he posted third-place finishes in every race he entered. Under the tour’s drop rule—where a driver’s worst finish from the first five nights is excluded—his consistency earned him the runner-up spot in points.
Gabe Deschamp, the two-time defending champion from Westhope, ended the tour third in points. Deschamp started the week strong with a win at Underwood on June 3 and added two more at Williston and Estevan. His trio of wins tied him atop the all-time Tougher Than Dirt Tour SportMod win list with Erik Laudenschlager. However, finishes of 18th at Dickinson and 11th at Bottineau kept him from a third straight title.
Raynard Races to Hobby Stock Crown
In the Sunoco IMCA Hobby Stocks, Diezel Raynard, also from Lampman, brought home the championship after a dramatic late-week surge.
Raynard began the tour with a third-place finish at McLean County Speedway, then placed fourth in both Dickinson and Williston. The turning point came north of the border at Estevan Motor Speedway, where he claimed his first career tour win. He sealed the deal with a clutch victory in Bottineau to secure the title.
Diezel Raynard wheeled his no. 96R entry to the 2025 Tougher Than Dirt Tour title in the Sunoco IMCA Hobby Stocks, also making history as the first Hobby Stock champion from Saskatchewan. (Photo by MAK’n Photography)
Ty Saxon, another Saskatchewan standout, took second in points. After a slow start with a 10th-place showing at Underwood, Saxon rebounded with a fifth at Dickinson, a first-career tour win at Williston, second at Estevan, and a seventh at Thunder Mountain.
Trever Haas, of Minot, rounded out the top three. Haas’s week included a fifth at Underwood, sixth at Williston, fourth at Estevan, and third at Bottineau. He used the race at Southwest as his drop night.
The entire Tougher Than Dirt Tour was broadcast live on IMCA TV affiliate DARN TV. Catch every lap again with the IMCA TV Replay Subscription, available for just $24.99/month. And don’t miss Season 2 of the Boone Docuseries, now streaming exclusively on IMCA TV.
