By Ben Deatherage
ONAGA, Kan. (Sept. 21, 2026) — Nicholas Ronnebaum began the weekend nearly 700 miles from home.
By the time he finished it, he had joined one of the most exclusive groups in Sunoco IMCA Hobby Stock racing.
Ronnebaum won Friday night at Fix It Forward Speedway in West Fargo, N.D.
He won again Saturday at Salina Speedway.
Then came Sunday, Aug. 23.
Ronnebaum arrived at Goodland Raceway in western Kansas sitting on 99 career victories and facing another track he barely knew.
“The night wasn’t too bad,” Ronnebaum said. “I hadn’t really raced Goodland before and didn’t know what to expect, but I got out to see the track and set the car up for tracks that I’d been on that looked similar to it.”
Whatever he saw worked.
Ronnebaum started eighth in his heat race and charged to second. He rolled off ninth for the feature and began working his way through the field.
“I picked them off one by one,” he said.
When the checkered flag fell, Ronnebaum had completed a three-night sweep and, more importantly, earned the 100th Sunoco IMCA Hobby Stock feature victory of his career.
The milestone made Ronnebaum the 19th driver to reach the Century Club in the division and the fourth from Kansas, joining Brady Bencken, B.J. Dauer and Cody Williams.
For a driver whose seasons have often consisted of only 15 to 20 nights of racing, reaching triple digits was the culmination of a journey that began when Ronnebaum was a kid watching his father race.
Following the Family No. 7
Racing was part of the Ronnebaum family before Nicholas ever climbed behind the wheel.
His father, George, competed during the early to mid-1990s before Nicholas was born. Years later, when Nicholas was 6 or 7 years old, his father returned to racing for a time in a Karl Kustoms IMCA Northern SportMod.
That was when his son began paying attention.
“My dad used to race in the early to mid-’90s before I was born, but then he got a SportMod for a little while when I was 6 or 7,” Ronnebaum said. “When he had that, that was the first time I got introduced to racing.”
His father’s own introduction to the sport had been simple. One of his good friends started racing, and he decided to give it a try himself.
As Nicholas got older, another member of the family helped pull him deeper into the sport.
His uncle, Mark, was racing a Late Model when Nicholas was around 11 or 12, and his nephew began going to the races with him.
It wasn’t long before watching was no longer enough.
“When I turned 13, I asked my parents if I could get a race car, and they made it happen,” Ronnebaum said.
He was 14 when he made a couple of starts in 2012 before running his first full season in 2013.
The number on the car also came directly from his father.
His dad had raced No. 7 simply because he liked the way the number looked. Nicholas carried the seven into his own career but added an N, helping avoid conflicts when he traveled to tracks where another No. 7 was already competing.
The result was No. 7N.
It has become a familiar sight far beyond his native Kansas.
Nicholas Ronnebaum wheels his No. 7N Sunoco IMCA Hobby Stock during competition. The Onaga, Kan., driver became the 19th member of the division’s Century Club after earning his 100th career feature victory Aug. 23 at Goodland Raceway. (Photo by Carl Larson-Photos by Red)
Ronnebaum earned his first career IMCA Hobby Stock feature victory during the summer of 2014 at Thunderhill Speedway in Mayetta, the track where much of his early racing education took place.
“I pretty much raced at Thunderhill until 2016 or so and then started traveling a little bit more,” he said. “I got out and raced against some other people and at different race tracks.”
That willingness to travel became an important part of his development.
Ronnebaum captured the 2017 track championship at Thunderhill before adding another championship at Junction Motor Speedway in McCool Junction, Neb., in 2020.
His success continued after he began venturing farther from home.
Ronnebaum won three consecutive Salina Speedway championships from 2021 through 2023 and added back-to-back Concordia Raceway titles in 2023 and 2024.
The victories began piling up with them.
He recorded 18 feature wins in both 2022 and 2023, which stood as his career high entering this season.
Then came 2026.
Ronnebaum has already amassed 23 victories this season, pushing him beyond the century mark for his career.
“It’s been a really good year this year,” he said. “I had about a week stretch or maybe even a month stretch where I had some pretty bad luck and nothing could go right, but now it’s starting to click off pretty good.”
Learning Beyond the Hobby Stock
Although nearly all of Ronnebaum’s success has come in a Hobby Stock, it hasn’t been the only type of race car he has driven.
When his brother began competing in Mach-1 IMCA Sport Compacts, Ronnebaum joined him for four or five races in the division.
One of his more unusual racing experiences, however, came hundreds of miles from Kansas.
Ronnebaum attended the University of Northwestern Ohio, where motorsports is part of the school’s curriculum and students have opportunities to gain hands-on experience with race cars.
While attending UNOH, Ronnebaum made seven starts in the school’s Stock Car.
Still, the Hobby Stock remained home.
And despite the growing win total, there were seasons when Ronnebaum wasn’t chasing points or racing several nights each week.
“There’s been a couple of times where I’ve raced a lot, but most years my season consists of about 15 to 20 nights,” he said.
That was especially true in 2025.
“Last year I didn’t race that much,” Ronnebaum said. “I just raced around at specials and didn’t run anywhere weekly, but the two previous years we had some really good years.”
A year later, he put together his winningest season yet.
And three consecutive victories in three different places finally carried the 7N to 100.
From the Railroad to Racing in Onaga
Ronnebaum’s racing operation is based in Onaga, a small community in Pottawatomie County in northeastern Kansas.
The region’s history stretches back long before the community itself.
Native peoples inhabited the Great Plains for millennia before European settlement. The land that became modern Kansas passed from France to Spain and back to France before becoming part of the United States through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
Kansas Territory was organized in 1854, and Pottawatomie County was established by the territorial legislature in 1857. Kansas became the 34th state four years later in 1861.
Onaga came along two decades later.
The community was platted by the railroad in 1877. Its name was derived from the Potawatomi name Onago and was selected by Paul E. Havens, president of the Kansas Central Railroad.
Onaga’s first post office was established in December of that year, and the community was incorporated as a city during the early 1880s before being reincorporated in 1926.
Today, Ronnebaum describes his hometown much more simply.
“There’s not really too much around here,” he said. “There’s maybe 800 people. The biggest thing here is the hospital and the school.”
For Ronnebaum, however, racing has ensured that life based in a small Kansas community has taken him considerably farther.
He has raced from North Dakota to Nebraska and across Kansas, competed while attending college in Ohio and steadily accumulated victories along the way.
Now, racing has become part of his livelihood as well.
A Doughboy statue honors World War I veterans in Onaga, Kan., the hometown of Sunoco IMCA Hobby Stock Century Club member Nicholas Ronnebaum. The small Pottawatomie County community was platted by the railroad in 1877 and incorporated in the early 1880s. (Photo courtesy of Perrussel.org)
Building More Than a Win Total
For most of his life, Ronnebaum’s world has revolved around race cars.
“Pretty much ever since I was 14, racing has been my whole life,” he said.
About a year ago, he took another step and started his own welding business, Ronnebaum Welding and Fab.
He has also begun building his own Dirt Digger Chassis, taking the experience accumulated over more than a decade behind the wheel and applying it to constructing race cars.
But there is someone else in the shop these days who matters considerably more than any chassis or feature win.
His daughter, Stella, is 2 1/2.
Outside of racing, Ronnebaum said spending time with Stella is at the top of his list, although racing has already found its way into their time together.
He enjoys having her alongside him in the shop while he works on the race car.
It is another generation growing up around the same sport that introduced Ronnebaum to his father when he was 6 or 7 years old.
Ronnebaum credits his fiancée, Danielle; Stella; Ava; his parents, George and Tiffany; and the many people who have supported his racing program through the years.
His sponsors include Dalton, Dirt Digger Chassis by Ronnebaum Welding and Fab, Schmidt Machine, Ronnebaum Salvage, Ronnebaum Family Farms, Wesley Trucking, Schroll Body and Paint, Burdiek Farms, Morrison Heating and Cooling, Rieger Collision, RS Customs, Empress Ink by Jesse, Buffalo Nutrition, and Extreme Motorsports.
There have been championship seasons, years spent traveling and others when Ronnebaum raced only a limited schedule.
There have been different cars and different tracks.
But the No. 7 that his father chose simply because he liked how it looked remained.
Nicholas added an N.
Then, one by one, he added the wins.
On Aug. 23 at Goodland Raceway, he finally added No. 100.
