The Scoop
MULLEN & VAN PAY – TIED AT 127 HEADING INTO ’21
Posted on: Friday April 2, 2021
Seymour’s Brian Mullen sits tied among Wisconsin racers with Green Bay native R.M. Van Pay. Both veterans have 127 IMCA sanctioned modified wins heading into the 2021 season. This photo was taken after Mullen scored a feature win at the now defunct Oshkosh Speedzone. (Panske Enterprises photo)
IMCA introduced the modified division to northeast Wisconsin in the mid-1980s.
And since that time seven out of the top ten all time sanctioned feature winners from Wisconsin still battle in the modified class on a regular basis. And none of those seven drivers show any signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Heading into 2021 Brian Mullen of Seymour and R.M. Van Pay sit in a tie with 127 sanctioned victories. Luxemburg native Benji LaCrosse sits third with 119 wins. Fremont’s Mike Wedelstadt is fourth with 113 feature flags and back a way rounding out the top five is Todd “Felix” Dart of Algoma with 80 wins.
Granted the landscape has changed dramatically since the class ran on Seymour’s old half-mile in 1984 and at 141 Speedway’s paved quarter-mile in 1986. Luxemburg sanctioned the modifieds a few years later and soon after Shawano Speedway picked them up as did Thunder Hill Raceway in Sturgeon Bay, which reopened in 1993.
In addition, a pair of now defunct racetracks – Oshkosh Speedzone and Manitowoc County Expo ran the modifieds sanctioned for several seasons, offering more opportunities to garner sanctioned feature wins.
Dodge County Fairgrounds in Beaver Dam ran the IMCA modifieds as well when they had a weekly show and 141 Speedway has run the modifieds sanctioned since the track was converted to dirt in 2010.
Throw in the multiple $5,000 and $10,000-to-win sanctioned races available most weeks around the country during the season and there are ample opportunities to score some wins.
But just how much these guys have raced and where has fluctuated a bit over the years. Both Mullen and Van Pay scored multiple feature wins and track championships locally. But in recent years Mullen’s focus was building race cars and traveling to bigger shows around the Midwest. “This year we plan on starting out running Seymour on Fridays and 141 on Saturdays,” Mullen said. “But when those big specials start up around mid-summer we plan on bouncing around hitting that out-of-town stuff. There are some really good specials on tap this year.”
In the ‘90s and 2000s Van Pay and Mullen squared off against each other regular at Seymour and Luxemburg, but that has changed in recent years. Van Pay, who moved to Denmark years ago, has made 141 his ‘home track.’ Mullen’s first season in the modifieds was 1990 while Van Pay has been racing in the modifieds since 1988.
“Our game plan is to obviously pass up Brian (Mullen),” Van Pay said. “This year we’ll be at 141 weekly and then we’ll float around between Luxemburg and maybe Seymour too. We’ve just got to get those feature wins.”
LaCrosse’s accomplishments are astounding when you consider he didn’t start wheeling a modified until 2003 long after Van Pay and Mullen started in the division. “My goal is most certainly to get past (Mullen and Van Pay),” LaCrosse said. “My plan is to not have a plan to run anywhere weekly just like the last couple of years. If we run any track the most it will likely be Luxemburg.”
Despite getting a start much later in his IMCA modified career than Brian Mullen and R.M. Van Pay, Luxemburg native Benji LaCrosse sits third in Wisconsin’s all time IMCA sanctioned wins heading into ’21 with 119 wins. (danlewisphoto.net)
According to LaCrosse, he will pop in on occasion at Seymour, 141 and hit all of the big dollar races including 141’s Clash at The Creek and traveling out-of-state to specials in Iowa and Minnesota.
Fremont’s Wedelstadt started his racing modified career in 1994 and plans on competing Fridays at Seymour and Saturdays at 141 Speedway. Dart, who sits in fifth in overall wins, is the defending 141 Speedway champion. With 80 sanctioned wins, he sits a full 33 wins behind Wedelstadt. “I don’t think with the tough competition these days and the number of nights I race nowadays I could ever get that many wins again to catch Mike (Wedelstadt),” said Dart, who started wheeling modifieds in 1993. “I was never a three-night-a-week racer like some of those guys were, so it was really tough to bump my total count up.”
Dart is the all-time feature winner at Thunder Hill Raceway in Sturgeon Bay with 58 career wins. However, the track has not flown the IMCA banner for the past couple of seasons.
Pulaski’s Brad Rohloff is the highest ranked driver in all time wins who no longer races. Rohloff, who scored many of his wins at Luxemburg, Seymour Tri-Oval, Shawano and Manitowoc, sits with 72 wins with Green Bay’s Eddie Muenster seventh with 70 victories. In recent years Shawano Speedway has been Muenster’s main track he’s battled at on the dirt.
Green Bay native Jared Siefert sits eighth with 57 wins but has moved up to the late model division. New Franken’s Shawn Kilgore sits in ninth with 52 career wins and could move up the ranks this year. Beaver Dam’s Jay Schraufnagel rounds out the top ten with 49 wins but hasn’t raced regularly for several seasons.
Just outside of the top ten sits Green Bay’s Jerry Muenster in 11th, with 48 wins. Muenster will be 80 in May and still plans on racing on Shawano’s half-mile weekly.
Wausau’s Marcus Yarie is 12th with 47 victories and could move up the list by the time the 2021 season wraps up. Yarie scored five victories a season ago. “This year we plan on racing at Shawano and Seymour weekly,” Yarie said. “We want to crack into that top ten in all time wins and we may even hit Luxemburg a few times if the schedule allows us to.”
A three-way tie for 13th includes Pulaski’s Jason Czarapata, Kewaunee’s Eugene Gregorich Sr. and Frog Station’s Dan Ratajczak, who all have 44 victories.
What are the odds we could see some new faces in the top 10 in the near future? Odds are good you could eventually see the likes of Lucas Lamberies, Johnny Whitman, Josh Long or others move up the list down the road. But one thing is for certain – with the competition as close as it is those “W’s” are much tougher to come by than they were when the division was relatively new in the ‘80s and early 1990s.
TOP 15 WISCONSIN ALL TIME IMCA MODIFIED FEATURE WINNERS AS OF APRIL 2, 2021
(stats courtesy of Bill Martin at IMCA)
127-Brian Mullen, Seymour, Wis.
127-R.M. Van Pay, Green Bay, Wis.
119-Benji LaCrosse, Green Bay, Wis.
113-Mike Wedelstadt, Fremont, Wis.
80-Todd Dart, Algoma, Wis.
72-Brad Rohloff, Pulaski, Wis.
70-Eddie Muenster, Green Bay, Wis.
57-Jared Siefert, Green Bay, Wis.
52-Shawn Kilgore, Kewaunee, Wis.
49-Jay Schraufnagel, Beaver Dam, Wis.
48-Jerry Muenster, Green Bay, Wis.
47-Marcus Yarie, Wausau, Wis.
44-Jason Czarapata, Pulaski, Wis.
44-Eugene Gregorich, Kewaunee, Wis.
44-Dan Ratajczak, Frog Station, Wis.