Newswire

DECORAH, Iowa – Tyler Bruening admits that there were a few sleepless nights before the end of his Deery Brothers Summer Series dream season. Bruening and Jeff Aikey took their race to the 2016 IMCA Late Model tour title down to the final event. While engine issues sidelined the seven-time champion, Bruening rocketed from 21st starting to sixth at the finish to capture his career first crown. “This was a huge dream come true. When I started racing, my goal was to not get lapped so we’ve obviously come a long way. We have come leaps and bounds with our entire program,” he said. “I’m really proud of becoming the Deery Series champion. When my dad (Greg) raced, this was a goal of his. I’m very proud to have accomplished this feat.” From Decorah, Iowa, Bruening qualified for his first Deery feature in 2005 and has been a series regular since 2009. He won the Yankee Dirt Track Classis and $7,500 at Farley Speedway – all three of his career tour wins have come at the [Read More]

OSKALOOSA, Iowa ­– Already a two-division star, Cayden Carter impressed in a third IMCA class this season. Five top-five finishes figured in his run to rookie of the year honors in the Deery Brothers Summer Series for Late Models. “Everybody is good in this series. Just about anybody can win on a given night,” said Carter, who qualified for all 16 series main events and finished as runner-up in just his fourth tour start, at Quad City Speedway. That May 15 showing preceded three more top five’s in the next four series events. “Rookie of the year was our goal from the start of the season. We struggled in the first couple of races. The biggest challenge for us was dialing the shocks in and learning what to change and what not to change,” Carter said. “I led 32 of 40 laps at Quad City and while it was disappointing not to win, it was still a big confidence booster.” He followed with top five’s at Marshalltown Speedway, Independence Motor Speedway and Kos­suth County Speedway. [Read More]

CEYLON, Minn. – The feature victories weren’t there like they were in previous years but his con­sistency made Michael Stien a big winner this season. Along with his second Sprint Series of Minnesota title in three years, Stien scored his career third Allstar Performance State crown plus third straight Arlington Raceway and first Jackson Mo­torplex track championships. “We set out to win the series and Arlington track championship,” said Stien, from Ceylon. “Every­thing started going our way at Jackson so we started chasing points at the end of the point sea­son.” Stien finished in the top five in half a dozen of his series starts. He complemented three wins with seven second-place showings while finishing fifth in the national standings. “We’ve had years where we’ve won more but we got a lot of seconds this season,” he said. “You’d always rather win but second places were good enough to have a good season this year.” Long-time driver Mike Sargent heads up the crew for Stien, who lives an hour and a half from the shop, [Read More]

GREENVILLE, Texas – After following the tour for the first time, veteran Jeff Day added the Sprint Se­ries of Texas championship plaque to his collection of IMCA awards. Day won three of the 11 IMCA EMI RaceSaver  events, finished in the top five in five more and – best of all – got to spend the summer racing with his son Michael, the SST runner-up. “We were competing against each other all season, and the races weren’t just between us, but a lot of times we were swapping slide jobs for the lead,” said the senior Day. “We both had a lot of fun on the series this year.” From Greenville, Texas, Day started racing a Sprint Car in 1996 and was champion at the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s two years later. This season, he traveled with and pitted next to three-time national champion Johnny Miller, who was successful in his pur­suit of the Elite Non-Wing Series title. “I thought we had a real shot at winning the series, but about [Read More]

VISALIA, Calif. – Blake Robertson came as close to IMCA EMI RaceSaver Sprint Car perfection as you can get in 2016. Robertson won 14 of his 15 Western RaceSaver Sprint Series starts this season, scooping up Allstar Performance California State honors in addition to the tour title. “We’ve never had a season like this,” he acknowledged. “When we needed luck it fell our way. The stars were getting in line at the Sprint Nationals before we ran out of time, but we had a very blessed season.” Robertson racked up all those wins at Thunderbowl Speedway, Bakersfield Speedway, Keller Auto Speedway at Kings Fairground and Santa Maria Raceway. The one race he didn’t win was the second of the season, when he tangled with a lapped car while running second at Kings and ended in 11th. The hands-on owner of BR Motorsports, a mail order parts supplier of parts for Sprint Cars and Midgets, and King Racing Products, which manufactures those parts, Robertson is from Visalia and began  racing Sprint Cars more than 20 years [Read More]

LINCOLN, Neb. – Jason Martin couldn’t have picked a better night to win his first Sprint Series of Nebraska feature of the season. Martin became the sixth different winner in as many IMCA EMI RaceSaver tour events on championship night at U.S. 30 Speedway. The victory made him the series champion by all of one point over Joey Danley. “We never really set out to race for points. We race for wins,” said Martin, from Lincoln and a 20-year veteran of the winged division. “U.S. 30 is a track where I’ve been successful at in the past. It just fits my driving style but we had so many rainouts in the series and a lot of them (four) were at Columbus.” Despite the rainouts and the resulting pro-rated bonus points, Martin was fourth in the national standings. He had five feature wins, including specials at the Iowa State Fairgrounds Speedway and Dodge City Raceway Park, along with 12 top five finishes. His 26 starts came at tracks in four states. “I like to travel and [Read More]