By Ben Deatherage
BAKER, Mont. (Nov. 25, 2025) — The highway out of Baker runs straight and lonely, a ribbon of asphalt cutting through open prairie and endless sky. It’s the kind of road where you measure distance not in miles, but in hours — the kind that every racer from eastern Montana knows by heart. Most weekends, Taylor Heaton and his family point their rig toward North Dakota, chasing laps across the badlands, putting in three-, four-, even five-hour hauls just to race.
For Heaton, that long road is part of the deal. It’s where the thinking happens, where the nerves settle, where the excitement builds. It’s where the weekend begins.
This is the landscape that shaped him — wide, rugged country where nothing comes easy and every mile matters. It’s where his family put down roots, where racing first sparked to life, and where that spark carried him from off-road machines to the no. 11H Sunoco IMCA Hobby Stock. Now, as he prepares for 2026, those same long miles are leading him into a new chapter: a full-time climb into the Karl Chevrolet IMCA Northern SportMod division.
The Long Haul
Racing in eastern Montana requires commitment on a scale most drivers never have to consider. Heaton’s nearest weekly option, Southwest Speedway in Dickinson, is 120 miles away — and it doesn’t run every weekend. To race consistently, he and his family head east, threading the truck and trailer across the western edge of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, where the badlands fall away in jagged waves of clay and shadow. The road to Williston Basin Speedway is long, the road to Nodak Speedway in Minot even longer — more than five hours one way.
“Sometimes it’s a long hike just to go racing,” Heaton said. “There are weekends we’re not sure if it’s going to rain out, and we have to leave before anyone knows for sure. We roll the dice a lot.”
Those dice rolls often end with late-night returns and early-morning work. Sunday shows at Minot demand the kind of stamina that only true die-hards understand.
“We’d run Minot on the weekends to get a couple of extra nights in,” Heaton said. “it can be hard going there on a Sunday and driving all night, then going straight to work the next morning. But that’s what it takes.”
A Racing Family
Heaton didn’t inherit a typical racing path. His father Jim ran off-road events — big-suspension metric cars, grippy tires, jumps, and chaos — while his sister Keely has found success in Legends. When off-road racing in their area began to fade, the family pivoted.
“Dad did the off-road series and had raced some local Street Stocks before that,” Taylor said. “When the off-road stuff started to die off, we decided to try something different. We sold everything and I picked up a Hobby Stock out of Iowa.”
In 2021, he began his Speedway Motors IMCA journey. The adjustment was immediate and humbling.
“It was a big change,” he said. “There’s a lot more brains going in a circle than people think. In off-road, there’s no real setup besides shocks and tire pressure. But in a Hobby Stock? It’s a whole different deal.”
His first year was trial by fire. “We reclipped that thing two or three times,” he laughed. “It was a learning experience. I wrecked a lot, but we bought that car to learn.”
The learning paid off. Heaton’s comfort traveling grew, and so did his results. The team made trips to Minot, Williston, and even as far as Hays, Kansas for the Fall Nationals. In fact, his growing confidence on the road translated into success at home — Heaton has won the track championship at Williston Basin Speedway each of the past two seasons.
“To get better, you have to travel,” Heaton said. “We try to do everything we can, as much as we can afford.”
A New Car, A New Class
This fall, Heaton sold his latest Hobby Stock and bought the SportMod driven by his friend Gabe Deschamp. The decision marked the biggest shift of his career.
“I got six or seven nights in it late in the season,” he said. “There’s a lot to learn — the quick-steer, how they drive. A SportMod is very different from a Hobby Stock. It took me about three nights just to figure out how to steer it.”
Progress came quickly. In his final race of the year at Williston Basin Speedway, Heaton finished second to Deschamp himself.
“It felt good,” he said. “I’m getting it. I feel ready.”
Taylor Heaton was the winner of the Sunoco IMCA Hobby Stock feature during the Tougher Than Dirt Tour event at Southwest Speedway in Dickinson, N.D., on June 4. (Photo by MAK’n Photography)
Home, Work, and the Baker Way of Life
Baker sits on the far eastern edge of Montana, a prairie town of about eighteen hundred people and the county seat of Fallon County — named for Benjamin O’Fallon, nephew of explorer William Clark. The town grew up along the Milwaukee Road rail line in the early 1900s, first called Lorraine before being renamed for railroad engineer A.G. Baker. Homesteaders soon filled the open range, and oil and natural gas discoveries in 1912 gave the town its long-standing industrial backbone.
Its toughness has been tested more than once, most notably in 2016 when an EF-3 tornado tore through neighborhoods and scattered debris into Lake Baker, forcing the lake to be drained. The Heaton family felt that storm personally — it passed directly over his great-grandparents’ and grandmother’s homes — but like the town itself, they rebuilt and carried on.
Baker is also home to one of Montana’s most unusual pieces of history: Steer Montana, the world’s largest steer. Born near town in 1923, he reached an astonishing 3,980 pounds and became a traveling attraction across the region. After his passing, his owner preserved him, and today his mounted remains are displayed at the O’Fallon Historical Museum.
Heaton fits right into that way of life. He works at Baker Metal & Recycling, welding, repairing equipment, selling new steel, and helping run the scrap yard.
“We do a little bit of everything,” he said. “There’s always something to work on, and I like that.”
When racing winds down, the family trades pit shoes for hunting gear.
“Outside of racing, hunting is our big thing,” Heaton said. “Deer, antelope, coyotes — that’s mostly what we have around here. I got an elk this year on the west side of the state.” The outdoors is as much a part of his life as the shop or the racetrack.
And the number on his door, 11H, is its own little signature.
“A lot of people run their dad’s number,” he said. “I didn’t really want to do that. I liked how eleven looked on a car, and I was born on August eleventh. That made it easy.”
A mural celebrating Steer Montana, the world’s largest steer, welcomes visitors outside the O’Fallon Historical Museum in Baker, Montana. (Photo by SoutheastMontana.com)
Looking Ahead
The 2026 season will be Heaton’s most ambitious yet as he runs a full SportMod schedule. He knows the learning curve will be steep, but he’s ready.
“I have to thank my dad and my sister — they help a lot,” he said. “And all my sponsors from Dean Trucking, Miller Underground, Sweet Ev’s Services, Baker Metal & Recycling, 4J Weld Service, Swift Springs, Quick Racing Roofs, FastShafts, Stone Motorsports, and Paul Transmissions.”
Racing is a way of life for Heaton, shaped by the miles he travels, the family who stands beside him, and the rugged country he calls home.
“We’re basically North Dakota with Montana perks,” he laughed. “But it’s home — and we love it.”
As the prairie winter settles in and the shop lights burn late into the night, Heaton is already preparing for the next chapter. A new class. A new challenge. Same long roads. Same determination.