The Scoop
NICK ANVELINK – ON ALL-TIME SHAWANO WINNER & CURRENT STATE OF DIRT LATE MODELS
Posted on: Monday August 25, 2025
Navarino’s Nick Anvelink surpassed Pete Parker as the all-time feature winner at Shawano Speedway following his Dirt Kings Tour late model victory Aug. 23. (Dirt Kings photo)
When Nick Anvelink secured the Dirt Kings Tour win at Shawano Speedway last Saturday night, he surpassed a true racing legend in moving up to the number one spot at the fabled half-mile, clay oval in all-time feature wins.
Anvelink’s victory Saturday night was his 93rd at Shawano. Anvelink passed up a national dirt late model Hall of Famer and a guy Nick’s dad battled against toe-to-toe for multiple decades, Kaukauna’s Pete Parker.
Granted, Parker hasn’t raced or likely even stepped foot on the Shawano Speedway grounds for several seasons. And even in recent years, Nick has abandoned weekly racing at Shawano in lieu of chasing assorted specials and what not. Lately, if Nick races four or five times at Shawano in one year it would be a surprise.
The latest list of all-time Shawano Speedway feature winners as of Aug. 24, 2025.
“Overall I’d say it’s a pretty cool deal,” Anvelink said. “I’m sure someday, someone will break my record. Pete (Parker) is in the Hall of Fame for a reason. He had a great career, and I was lucky enough to race against him for ten years.”
According to Anvelink, the weird thing is there were only one or two years – most likely his first two in racing – where he made every single Saturday night show in a season at Shawano. “We only won one track championship there, and I missed two nights and luckily one of them got rained out,” Anvelink said.
The landscape has changed tremendously since Anvelink started racing a few decades ago. Obviously the costs have soared across the board in many dirt track divisions. Teams that had multiple crew members both in the shop and at the track are a rare thing nowadays. Anvelink points out that for the most part in the shop daily it’s him and his dad, another dirt late model legend Terry Anvelink. “My brother Tyler does the tires, and we’ve got two other guys who help out, too. C.P. Gehm and Kurt Zueleger. One drives the hauler, and the other does all of those little things at the track. I still like to work on my own cars. I couldn’t do it without their help.”
Anvelink is well aware of the delicate situation with the local dirt late model scene. Car counts are dropping, and with the recent retirements of Ron Berna and Tom Naeyeart, word on the streets is a few more teams will most likely be hanging it up at the end of this season.
“I think there are a lot of guys who are more scared to jump into this class than really they should be,” Anvelink suggested. “There are a lot of good drivers who could come up to this class and run well. Look at Mike Mullen. Even though he doesn’t own his equipment, he’s only been in this division maybe four or five years and he’s winning. I could put Benji LaCrosse in my car, and I’d be willing to bet he could also be a threat to win. But some guys get it in their head they are going IMCA modified racing and that’s all there is to it. Even though what I hear the cost of some of these modifieds aren’t any different than what we are spending on late models. You don’t need to buy a brand new Longhorn chassis to win in Wisconsin or even the Midwest, for example.”
As far as the future goes, including the rest of the ’25 campaign and 2026, Anvelink definitely has some bucket list tracks’ he’d like to hit. “For this coming weekend, I’m waiting to see if my crew can make it as I’d like to check out some MARS series races a little further south,” Anvelink said. “One track I’d like to run before I hang up my helmet is Eldora (Ohio) Speedway. My dad hasn’t even been there. Eldora, Knoxville, Iowa and Fairbury, Illinois are three tracks I’d like to race at. My kids have been playing ball for years. Now that that’s done, I might have a little more flexibilty to do that. We don’t expect to win at Eldora, but I don’t think we’d get dominated there, either. I’ll be honest – the last three or four years with the kids in sports, I probably haven’t put the effort into my own racing program. I’m never going to race full time as that ship sailed a long time ago.”
When he’s not racing, Nick has worked at Pierce Manufacturing for close to 30 years. “I started working there right out of high school, and have been there ever since,” Anvelink said.
Attached are the all-time feature winners from Shawano. Interesting to note some still do compete to this day.
Anyways, get out and enjoy a show at a race track near you. The season is winding down quickly!
2025 REGIONAL DIRT TRACK FEATURE WINNERS (as of 8/24/25)
(Tracks included, but not limited to: Outagamie Speedway, Gravity Park USA, Luxy Raceway, 141 Speedway, The Hill Raceway, Plymouth Dirt Track & Shawano Speedway. We’ll also include feature wins by N.E. Wisconsin drivers scored at other tracks, including out-of-state and series victories. These include both IMCA sanctioned & non-sanctioned wins)
LATE MODELS
Mike Mullen 6
Andy Karl 5
Nick Anvelink 3
Taylor Scheffler 2
Mitch McGrath 2
Troy Springborn 2
Brett Swedberg 2
Lukas Postl 1
Joel Bennett 1
Jayden Schmidt 1
Justin Schmidt 1
Brad Mueller 1
IMCA MODIFIEDS
Johnny Whitman 7
Benji LaCrosse 6
Lucas Lamberies 5
Marcus Hoeppner 5
Jesse Cullen 4
Konnor Wilinski 3
Skylar Woods 3
Cole Czarneski 3
Matt Klenz 2
Tanner Janke 2
Joel Seegert 2
Ethan Braaksma 2 (141 Clash)
Todd Dart 2
Race Van Pay 2
Kevin Feck 2
Mike Wedelstadt 2
Steve Mueller 2
Cody Schroeder 2
Dan Roedl 1
Tony Wedelstadt 1
Geoff Jeche 1
Brian Mullen 1
Steve Schneider 1
Jayden Schmidt 1
Joel Crowbridge 1
Kelsey Wedelstadt 1
Russ Reinwald 1
Dave Zeitler 1
Wyatt Block 1
Adam Crapser 1
Greg Gretz 1
Brandon Schmitt 1
Marcus Yarie 1
Will Garceau 1
Jordan Bartz 1
Travis Hansen 1
IMCA STOCK CARS
Tyle Wilson 9
Cole Czarneski 9
Mike Mullen 8
Rod Snellenberger 8
Mark Hoeppner 8
Jeremy Christians 5
Benji LaCrosse 4
Devin Snellenberger 4
Luke Lemmens 3
Troy Muench 2
Tyler Schrimpf 2
Nick Buckarma 2
Josh Mroczkowski 2
Kyle Frederick 2
Brandon Schmitt 2
Brett Wenzel 2
Trent Nolan 2
Dylan Stedjee 1
Phil Mott 1
Trentin Bell 1
R.M. Van Pay 1
Nate Michonski 1
Caden LeMieux 1
Marcus Yarie 1
Shannon Guelette 1
Shawn Kilgore 1
Vern Stedjee 1
Aaron Karcz 1
Travis Welch 1
Daniel Sell Jr. 1
Brandon Czarapata 1
Tyler Wendt 1
Jamison MacDonald 1
Jeremy Johnson 1
Jerry Wilinski 1
IMCA NORTHERN SPORTMODS
Coy Vlies 9
Brian Konitzer 5
Max Oreskovich 4
Brady Harshbarger 4
Cole Thomas 4
Cory Kemkes 4
Craig Dorner 4
Tim Warner 4
Tommy Rindt 3
Ryan Schmidt 3
Jay Schaalma 3
Cole Magnin 3
Jake Carpenter 2
Cole Slezewski 2
Dylan Schmidt 2
Travis Schmidt 2
JJ Vanderloop 2
Jeffery Teske 2
Matt Urban 2
Tim Jorgenson 2
Matt Avila 2
Dustin White 1
Jordan Jahnke 1
Jim Zdroik 1
Spencer Long 1
AJ Springborn 1
Robert Wittkopf 1
Nick Kresbach 1
Colton See 1
Bernie Reinhardt 1
Jared Spaulding 1
Trevin Veeser 1
Dan Jung 1
Randy LeMieux Jr. 1
Roger LaViolette 1
John Young 1
Rick LeMieux 1
Chris Kuchta 1
Steve Lorier 1
Kaden Besaw 1
Tyler Demars 1
Derek Fehling 1
UNIFIED DIRT STREET STOCKS
Trey Van Straten 11
Paul Diefenthaler 10
Jeff Richards 6
Derek Moede 5
Dave DeGrave 4
Ryan Sullivan 3
Shannon Guelette 3
Cory Romenesko 3
Mark Hoeppner 2
Phillip Wuesthoff 2
Kyle Genett 2
Austin Steinke 1
Jason Piron 1
Danny Gracyalny 1 (Eagle River)
Garrett Geyer 1
Jacob Ambrosius 1
Alex Haese 1
Matt Hanson 1
Dan Van Pay 1
Nick Wunrow 1
Larry Richards 1
GRAND NATIONALS
Jeff Richards 10
Jeff Muehlbauer 5
Jake Richards 2
Maverick Ruh 2
Brian Gilles 1
Tyler Wilson 1
Jeff Steenbergen 1
Bristol Hitsman 1
Nick Schumacher 1
Brad Weiss 1
FOUR CYLINDERS/IMCA SPORT COMPACTS
Skyler Bork 9
Brian Watzka Jr. 8
James Reese 7
Cody Booth 4
Thomas Schulte 4
Adam Broehm 3
Shawn Bangart 3
Brad Wedde 3
Tanner Westphal 3
Dalton Nelson 2
Clint Malueg 2
Scott Schlafke 2
Bennett Glidden 2
Chase Ertel 2
Tucker Pari 2
TJ Everard 2
Seth Collar 1
Ben Schulte 1
Missy Clark 1
Brett Deprez 1
Jeffrey Meyer 1
Scott Blanke 1
Ricky Kaufert 1
Taylor Junk 1
Justin Finlan 1
Justin Haufe 1
Nathan Bowers 1
Calvin Stueck 1
Justin Haufe 1