By Bill Martin
CLEAR LAKE, Iowa (Oct. 27, 2025) — Taking the same approach that’s worked for nearly three decades took Jeremy Mills back to the top of the podium in IMCA’s Razor Chassis North Central Region.
Mills motored to 16 feature wins in his 50 home region starts along with Friesen Performance IMCA Modified track titles at Boone Speedway and Hancock County Speedway.
Also the 2009 regional king, he was second in national point standings, duplicating that finish from 16 years ago as well.
“Our approach to each race night has always been the same. We have a pretty good system as to how we work on things. Your maintenance program has got to be top notch when you’re racing weekly,” said Mills, who honed that attitude in campaigns that earned IMCA Hobby Stock national rookie of the year and then national championship honors in 1996 and 1998, respectively.
Now 48 and a 29-year veteran of the sport, the speedster from Clear Lake raced to his career 150th win in the division on July 12 at Boone.
He celebrated his wedding anniversary with wife Katie while winning another Harken Hovinga Memorial at Kossuth County Speedway on the 31stof the same month, realizing about the same time that he still had a good shot at the national prize.
“We didn’t start out intending to run for the national championship,” said Mills, who had turned his initial 2025 laps during the IMCA Winter Nationals in Arizona and returned home to start the IMCA Speedway Motors Weekly Race season with a first-ever visit to Bloomfield Speedway. “For the most part, we were just racing and having fun.”
Until it started raining, that is.
“This year was maybe a little more challenging than some others with the fact that we’d get into a good rhythm, then the rain would come and we didn’t get to race for another week or two,” explained Mills. “It seemed like we had a lot of rainouts in the middle of the season and that hurt us. I feel that the more we race the better we are. When you’re not able to race because of the rain, or for any other reason, really, that slows your momentum down.”
“We had those rainouts and decided to venture out to some other places just to race,” he’d continue. “By at the end of July, we realized we were looking pretty good and decided ‘Hey, let’s put some more effort into this.’ We got a little more aggressive in our schedule toward the end of the year.”
Mills made starts at 10 tracks in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota, totaling eight wins at Boone – including a NAPA Auto Parts Prelude feature – five at Algona and one at Britt.
He swept the final weekend of the point season further north, topping shows at Arlington Raceway and Redwood Speedway, before seeing the national crown tip to Jeff Reay by a scant two-point margin.
“It was a good year,” said Mills, equally pleased with a fifth place showing in his career 10th Saturday night start at the Speedway Motors IMCA Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s. “What we accomplished would not have been possible without help from a lot of people, especially my mom Wendy and dad Kevin, and Gary and Maria Myers.”
“We might have come up a little short in our national points goal but any time you can win a region, especially this region, you have to be happy,” he said. “Winning the North Central Region is kind of like winning the national championship in my book when you look at the competition we race with weekly or at any special you want to travel to. The best of the best are here. We’ve always had a lot of good drivers and now a lot of the good drivers from other states are moving here.”
“No disrespect to any other region. I may be biased when I say it but I believe this region has the best competition across the board no matter where you go,” he’d continued. “I feel like that caliber of competition has helped me. You’ve got to elevate your game to a different level just to compete here. Every win we get, every top five we get, we’re just thankful because we understand just how tough this is.”
Mills now has 158 wins and 17 track championships in his Modified career. His first win in the division came in 1999 and he’s won at least once every year since 2005.
He’s also quick to share his success with his competition, particularly at Iowa’s Action Track.
“I think any time you can win a feature at Boone, a weekly show or a special, you’ve done something. They have one of the toughest weekly shows around,” said Mills. “There might be one or two or three Super Nationals champions in the field on any night. That helped us because our weekly competition was so good that when we were able to get out and travel, we were up to the challenge. Our weekly competitors got us ready to race against everybody else.”
“I’m just glad I can still compete with these guys.”
Feature Wins 16
Total Top Five’s 21
Total Starts 58
HIS CREW: Wife Katie, sons Dalton, DJ, McCoy and Bryant and daughter Emersyn; Gary Myers, Tyler Evers, Corey and Jackie VanSickle and Brandon Bjorker.
HIS SPONSORS: Mills Farm and Repair of Marathon; Sta-Mel Enterprises of Webb; Lakeside Environmental of Rockwell; N&J Trucking of Algona; Keane Farms of Jewell; Sents Seeds and Services and McNeese Tire and Automotive, both of Britt; Steven Anderegg and Smokin’ Whips BBQ, both of Mason City; Outdoor Image of Boone; CPD Racing Shocks of Fort Dodge; Fast Shafts of Des Moines; Swift Springs and Frank Simonetti of Chino Valley, Calif.; Gary Myers and family of Omaha, Neb.; Jordan Grabouski Racing and Brand X Racecars of Beatrice, Neb.; Oak Creek Saloon of Ashton, Neb.; Smith Racing Carburetors LLC of Grand Island, Neb.; TomTom’s Guide Service of Yutan, Neb.; Dirt Stars Racing Products of Taylor Ridge, Ill.; Freedom Race Lifts of Lake City, Minn.; Rush Race Gear and Austin Witt of Corpus Christi, Texas; Henry’s Headers & Exhaust Systems LLC of Clay, N.Y.; and Stone Oilfield Service of Lovington, N.M.