The Scoop
ARNESON: “RACING IS LIKE A DRUG”
Posted on: Tuesday October 20, 2020
A few years ago, Eric “Chummy” Arneson sold his entire sportmod racing operation to focus on his new career – selling real estate.
Now in 2020 he’s been back in a different division and winning – a lot. The 34-year-old from Oconto Falls made the switch from IMCA’s northern sportmod division to the class dubbed “Too Tough To Tame” the IMCA stock cars. A field loaded with talent at nearly any dirt bullring located in northeast Wisconsin.
In 2020 in his 3rd full season running in the fendered division “Chummy” captured the division titles at Outagamie Speedway in Seymour and ‘The Burg’ Speedway in Luxemburg. Along the way “Chummy” scored eight feature wins.
“I had actually become real good friends with Todd Weise who had built up a very successful real estate business in Wisconsin,” Arneson said. “Todd and I would go hunting together and he raced sportmods. He convinced me to get into the real estate business.”
When Arneson sold off all of his sportmod equipment he took those two years off and devoted all of his time and resources into his new career. “Before I got into real estate, I ran a custom harvesting operation,” Arneson said. “We were doing farm work. I mean there were times I’d work 120 hours a week. There is no overtime in farming. What Todd (Weise) told me was that real estate would change my life. It has really. It’s a lot of work too though.”
Arneson got his start in racing helping out his brother “Dancin’ Lance” Arneson. “I was still in high school and Lance – who is my older brother – was running a street stock,” Arneson said. “Seymour was still a Tri-Oval back then. The way I looked at it racing was like a hobby like drinking beer or something like that. It was something I decided I wanted to get into myself.”
Arneson wound up buying one of Lance’s old street stocks – which was originally built and raced by “Lunchbox” Shawn Wagner of Pulaski. “When I started out I had absolutely no idea what I was doing,” Arneson chuckled. “My car would wind up smoking every week it seemed. I was lucky to even make the show. My motor mounts kept breaking every single week so I welded a chain to the frame and bolted it to the motor. I had no garage. I worked on my car on the trailer. I pulled my motors in and out with a tree. That was my cherry picker. I maybe had a total of $2,000 in my race car tops back then.”
Back then, while many drivers didn’t necessarily care for Seymour’ Tri-Oval, Arneson claimed he really didn’t know any better. “At the time it was fun and I really did not know any better,” Arneson laughed. “There were a ton of street stocks back then and I always seemed to make a lot of junk in that Tri-Oval. I probably wouldn’t like it nowadays to be honest.”
Around 2004-2005 the sportmods were introduced to the local tracks and Chummy hooked up with a local IMCA veteran named Chuck Grall. “Chuck’s a great guy and got me into that class,” Arneson recalled. “I was working for Extreme Enterprises in Cecil back then and the class was really new. I bought an old sportmod from Brad Bricco. Chuck helped me set it up. I started building race motors back then too.”
Grall was in Chummy’s corner during his first ever sportmod race. “I remember it well it was at Luxemburg,” Chummy recalled. “I started 18th and wound up finishing second to Eugene Gregorich that night. That’s when things started changing and we started winning right away.”
Arneson found a sportmod much more responsive to drive than an older, heavier street stock. “It was a completely different animal,” Arneson said. “I had a good car and having Chuck help me in those early days was a huge help back then. It felt good to be fast and competitive.”
Although he has no idea of how many career feature wins he has amassed over the years Arneson does know he won track titles at Luxemburg and Thunder Hill Raceway in Sturgeon Bay with the sportmod. Arneson took a page out of his brother Lance’s book and ran an “A” modified for four years as well.
So how did Arneson wind up in a stock car? “I had borrowed Josh Van Haren’s stock car to race a couple of times once towards the end of the year,” Arneson recalled. “I won with it. He wanted to sell it. I really took a liking to this class. The competition is second to none. There are so many good drivers. You really have no clue who is going to win. I mean I’m racing against guys who’ve been in this class for over 25 years or more.”
One other factor Arneson enjoys running the stock car class is the camaraderie. “People in this division just seem to get along with each other and talk more,” Arneson said. “I’m having a lot of fun with this class right now.”
While he’s having a lot of success now in the stock cars Arneson hasn’t ruled out getting an IMCA modified again as well. “Plans are up in the air,” Arneson said. “Our plan this year was to race 25 to 30 nights roughly and weekly twice. I’ve got a kid now so we’re not going to continue racing more than one night a week. As of now it looks like we’ll run the stock car weekly at Luxemburg in the future and if I got a modified we’d bounce around once in awhile on Friday or Saturday nights when time permits. I’d love to race against my brother Lance once in awhile too. That will be fun.”
Arneson is very quick to give credit to his pit crew members who consist of Dave Hansen, Sharon and Brian Gagnon. “Those are my three main pit crew members,” Arneson said. “I’m so busy with work I seldom have any time to work on my car there’s no way I could make it work. I owe a lot to them for keeping me going.”
Arneson’s team sponsors include Todd Weise Home Selling Team, Arneson Snow Plowing of Oconto Falls, Bob’s Service in Krakow, Extreme Enterprises of Cecil, Prime Motorsports of Shawano, Arrow Auto of Green Bay and KSI Racing (Jim Kozak Carquest) of Oconto Falls.
“This sport keeps sucking me back in,” Arneson admitted. “It’s sort of like that junkie who’s got that needle stuck in their arm. The sport of stock car racing is like it’s own drug. I was just going to race a couple of times a year for fun.”