By Bill Martin
DES MOINES, Iowa (Oct. 30, 2025) — A “random, home-built car” that Kolby Sabin bought super cheap sat in his dad Kurt’s driveway, covered by a tarp, for more than a year before he got it on the dirt.
It’s long since been promoted to prime parking, in a heated garage, after carrying Sabin to Sunoco IMCA Hobby Stock national and B & B Racing Chassis Northern Region rookie of the year titles.
“I’ve tried to find out more information about the car, but I’ve just run into a dead end,” said Sabin, a three-time feature winner and also track champion at Marshalltown Speedway in the mystery machine. “We got it in the middle of 2023, let it sit for a while before we worked on it and got it race-ready for 2024, then made a few spot starts and hit some practice nights.”
“After looking at other people’s cars, we made some changes in the off-season. We put in a new fire wall and floor pan and made some other updates I thought we needed. That seemed to help,” he’d continue. “We started off 2025 really consistent, with a lot of top five’s right off the bat. I was not expecting to run that consistently up front, that’s for sure.”
Car and driver complemented each other through 45 starts, all but five of them at Marshalltown, Boone Speedway and Stuart Speedway.
Second in the standings at Stuart, Sabin was a two-time winner, on May 10 and Aug. 2 on the way to finishing sixth in the Boone points race, and third in Iowa State standings. He ended with the Sept. 27 checkers at Hawkeye Downs Speedway as the quarter mile asphalt oval in Cedar Rapids was transformed to dirt to celebrate its centennial season.
“From last year when we were there, I thought Marshalltown and Boone were my worst tracks, but they turned out to be my best ones this year,” Sabin said. “Being able to pick up two wins against the really stout competition at Boone and Hawkeye Downs was special because I was not expecting to be running for the win. I wanted to be there for the event, kind of a mini-Bristol, and experience it, and I think I only led two laps, the last two.”
Thirteenth in his region and 15th nationally this season, Sabin had collected 42 wins in his Mach-1 IMCA Sport Career, with three straight Marshalltown titles and national runner-up finishes in both 2022 and 2023 to his credit.
“It was a big difference last year, going from racing 50 nights a season to less than 10. I don’t know how many practice nights we ran but we saved money and were able to purchase a home this year, so we killed two birds with one stone,” he said. “Rookie of the year was a distant goal at the beginning of this season. I didn’t know it would be achievable. I knew winning a track championship would help me run for rookie of the year, but I didn’t know if it would be realistic, given the competition I was running against.”
“This class was everything I was looking for. You can do more with the Hobby Stock as a driver than you can with a Sport Compact. Pretty much everything is completely opposite with how you drive the car,” said Sabin. “I had some help from Tommy Killen, who’s been doing this for a long time.”
Sabin works for Valvoline Instant Oil Change, doing building maintenance at stores in Des Moines, the Quad Cities and Lincoln, and notes that they’ve been very accommodating in his work and racing schedules.
Feature Wins 3
Top Five’s 19
Starts 45
HIS CREW: Father Kurt and girlfriend Natalea Webb.
HIS SPONSORS: Glory Motorsports of Bondurant; Monroe Foods of Monroe; Finishline Body & Paint of Grimes; The Beard of Indianola; grandparents Rick and Mary Denton of Cambridge; John and Barb Gill of Marshalltown; and the Blazina Family of Blair, Neb.