The Scoop
JEREMIE HEDRICK – “WE BROUGHT A KNIFE TO A GUN FIGHT” IN VEGAS
Posted on: Wednesday November 16, 2022
Clintonville, Wisconsin’s Jeremie Hedrick made the A main with a homebuilt motor under the hood at the Duel in the Desert at the XR Las Vegas Dirt Track November 13. Hedrick finished 19th. Hedrick was the only A mod driver in the feature field who sported a non-crate motor.
Jeremie Hedrick and his race team didn’t have a whole lotta time to gamble or enjoy the night life during their recent trip to the city that never sleeps.
The 44-year-old towed down from Clintonville, Wisconsin and drove mostly non-stop 30-hour ride with his pit crew members (who happened to have their CDL’s) to Las Vegas, Nevada for the Duel in the Desert XR Super Series event.
After getting knocked around in practice and spending more time than they wanted to replacing body panels and scraping mud, Hedrick not only made the 26 car A modified field (out of 108 cars in the division) the second-generation racer can lay claim to being the only driver in the feature field who sported a homebuilt, non-crate motor finishing 19th.
“We were essentially bringing a knife to a gun fight at the Duel at the Desert,” Hedrick confessed. “We even had the crate motor along just in case. With us running probably close to 70 lbs. heavier on the nose I guess we were pretty happy with that. It’s the same motor we took down to Bristol when we ran there when they covered it with dirt.”
Another factor Hedrick and his crew took pride in was the fact they made the show with a 2019 Shaw car built by Jeff Taylor. “It was actually the first car off the jig and wound up being their guinea pig car,” Hedrick said. “It had a lot of different stuff on it. It’s a few years old and got some bumps and bruises. We were running against teams with brand new cars and half a million-dollar team transporters, so we were pretty happy making the show out there with our little bitty operation.”
Hedrick was racing with some worn out tires he had raced on in the middle of the summer already. “We were truly a self-funded team so as a team we really held our heads high when we left there after making the show,” Hedrick explained. “We accomplished quite a bit probably on a fraction of the budget many of those other teams had behind them.”
According to Hedrick the event was what her termed “old-school.” “The format was a good old-fashioned draw-redraw and you simply had to race your way in,” Hedrick said. “We got four or five laps of practice in since we wrecked in our first practice session. We kept digging and digging. The track layout itself is like a smaller half-mile but the track surface was something very different there. It is comprised of drill tailings, which is the stuff they pull out of the mines. So, the surface has all sorts of weird stuff in it seemed. It’s not a very sticky berm and it doesn’t stick to the tires. The track was pretty wet and heavy.”
Even with the multiple divisions that ran during the program the XR staff insisted upon enough track prep and not having a “one lane snoozer” of a racetrack. “I’ll give them credit – they warned us it could potentially be a late night and for us it was,” said Hedrick, who’s feature didn’t take to the track until 3:30 a.m. CST. “But they were insistent they weren’t going to have a one lane track. I mean we wound up packing the track.
With fellow pit crew members road weary, the team opted not to wait around for payout and loaded up the race car and started on their excursion back to Wisconsin shortly after Hedrick took the checkers. “Two of my crew guys had to work the next day so we loaded up in a hurry and drove straight home,” Hedrick said. “I think next time though I’d bring my semi as with our truck it seemed like we had to stop every 200 miles or so and stop for fuel.”
Looking back on the trip – Hedrick said he cashed in some “time share points” and the team stayed in a time share condo. “That saved us some money,” Hedrick said. “We shopped at Wal Mart, cooked our meals, and spent some long nights at the track. But it’s all worth it.”
According to Hedrick the Vegas racing experience could not have been made possible without the help from his pit crew members – especially Jeff Becker. “Jeff put a lot of time into that car and made sure the car was ready to go,” Hedrick said. “Jeff did a bulk of the work and he’s a veteran so it was cool to be out there with him for Veteran’s Day.”
Mishaps on the track during early practice sessions kept the Hedrick crew busy fixing the body on his modified.
Crew members Lucas Weber and Ryan Jentsch each had their own “specialties” when it came to keeping Hedrick’s 19 car in tip top shape. “Lucas helped drive the rig there and back and he’s a body work guy,” Hedrick explained. “He’s pretty picky. He’s got to make sure that body looks good, and we certainly did enough of that when we were down there.”
One of the most dreaded jobs these days with dirt modified teams is maintaining the tire program. “Ryan Jentsch is my tire guy,” Hedrick pointed out. “Nobody likes to do tires, but he prepped the tires for us all week long.”
Sponsors who support Hedrick’s racing operation include ATA Transport LLC, Becker Racing and No Limits Graphics and Signs of Hortonville.
Closer to home during the summer months Hedrick no longer races quite as much as he once did – and for good reason. The former Green Bay Gambler hockey standout has three kids (Aleah, Tori and Ava) two of whom race karts themselves – mostly at GSR Kartway. “Tori and Ava are the racers and once they start running, I sort of limit myself just to Shawano on Saturday nights,” Hedrick said. “Shawano is the closest for me as it’s only 15 minutes from my house.”
So long trips to Vegas in the post season and even a couple of out-of-state trips before the weekly stuff gets going locally fits the bill well for Hedrick. “It’s sort of funny XR race director Bucky Doren and I go way back to my days when I played for the Waterloo Blackhawks hockey squad,” Hedrick recalled. “Bucky was calling our games way back then. We’ve known each other for a while.”
What are Hedrick’s racing plans for 2023? “I’ll most likely be at Shawano as it’s only 15 minutes from home,” Hedrick said. “Time is an issue for me. I’ll try to get out and race earlier in the year before the kids karting season starts anyways. I’m not big on going after sponsors but I will probably go after tire sponsors. For modifieds these days you go through a lot of them, and it’s almost turned into what it’s like for karting. If we can get a few sponsors to take care of a few sets of tires we should be o.k.”
VEGAS LEFTOVERS – Hedrick wasn’t the only Wisconsinite to travel to Vegas to play on the clay. Denmark’s Cole Czarneski ran with the A modifieds while Escanaba, Michigan’s Jesse Denome made the long haul and scored a 13th place finish in the northern sportmod feature.
WHAT’S IN A NAME? – Upper Peninsula International Raceway (UPIR) recently changed its name to Escanaba Speedway. A great move by the group running the clay oval at the fairgrounds in Escanaba. Most always refer to the track as “Esky” and the name is less cumbersome than UPIR.
It’s this scribe’s goal to get out to “Esky” at some point in 2023. Last time I was there was eight or nine years ago and there were well over two dozen vintage modifieds on hand which to me, in itself was well worth the trip.
MOVIN’ ON UP – It’s often during this time of year you hear rumblings of drivers moving up into a different division and in December, ’22 that’s no exception. In Door County Egg Harbor’s Cody Patten, a wheelchair bound racer who refuses to let his disability slow him down, will move up to the IMCA stock car class in 2023, battling with his racer at the non-sanctioned The Hill Raceway in Sturgeon Bay and also at the IMCA sanctioned show The ‘Burg Speedway in Luxemburg.
On the pavement Pembine, Wisconsin’s own Anthony Schiefelbein has taken the big step to move up from the super stock class to the late models at Norway (MI) Speedway. Another Norway track champion, Dean Bellmore, the “Godfather” of the Hermansville Mafia, will move up from the four bangers to the super stock class at the paved, third-mile next year.
MARS RETIRES – Although he’ll remain entrenched deeply into the sport through his son Sam and his business MB Customs, Menominee racer Jimmy Mars recently announced he was hanging up his helmet. Mars became a national name in the dirt late model world following his win at The Dream at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio in 1997 after having a ton of success in the Midwest prior to that.
Mars has tabbed United States Touring Modified Series champion Dustin Sorenson of Rochester, Minnesota to replace him in the 28 car.
WHAT’S AHEAD? – Starting December 1, we’ll countdown our annual top ten list of the stories most viewed and listened to at joeverdegan.com in 2022. To me I’ve sort of evolved into a numbers guy a little bit and it’s very interesting to see what stories – whether it be the audio interviews via the “On The Record” segments, the latest stuff through “The Scoop” or taking a trip down memory lane through a segment at “The Vault”. What’s your favorite segment of the website? As always, email me anytime at jverdegan2@gmail.com with any thoughts or suggestions as we’re always looking to improve upon our product here.
You can catch us in person coming up in Manitowoc, Wisconsin December 3 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Sabbatical Brewing for the Pedal Down Promotions Book Signing and Author Show. I’ll have a pair of Lakeshore racing legends accompanying me for the book signing as well – Two River’s Bucky Wagner and the man who appears on the cover of my first book “Life In The Past Lane – a history of stock car racing in northeast Wisconsin from 1950-1980” “Wild Bill” Fitzgerald. Swing on out to get some early Christmas shopping done.
Also keep checking the Joe Verdegan Facebook page as we’ll have a pretty sweet deal for Black Friday coming up. As always, thanks for reading!