The Scoop
KERRY HANSEN – DIRT LATE MODEL ACE CLOSES IN ON 50 YEAR CAREER
Posted on: Tuesday October 14, 2025
Kerry Hansen poses next to his Seubert Calf Ranches ride at Outagamie Speedway in Seymour in September, 2025.
Kerry Hansen paid just $50 for his race car in 1976, and the prize money he earned from his first night of racing paid for his car.
The now 67-year-old veteran dirt tracker from Spencer, Wisconsin is closing in on nearly one-half century of making left hand turns on the clay. “That first car was a ’65 Mustang Fastback, with disc brakes and a 289 cubic inch engine we pulled from some abandoned car down at the farm,” Hansen recalled. “We took it out to the half-mile at Neillsville (Clark County Fairgrounds). The year was 1976. We won the first heat and the semi-feature in the hobby stock class. I won $50, and paid for my race car in the first night out. Could you imagine if I still had that as a street car these days?”
It didn’t take long for Hansen to go “all in” with his racing career. Hansen was a fixture for decades at the long defunct Central State Speedway in Colby, Wisconsin as well as the half-mile oval at Marshfield. “I was at Marshfield the very first day they opened the doors there,” Hansen recalled. “It was in a hobby stock, and it was a really good car I had. Our radiators were built so that we could pull them out after the heat races and put in a different radiator for the feature. The track had that many stones. It was really bad in the early days. Every week we’d wind up fixing both radiators. It was part of our routine back then, I guess.”
Kerry Hansen in action. (seeking photo credit)
Over the years, Hansen has experienced success, winning multiple features and titles at Marshfield wheeling a late model. But just exactly how many victories earned remains a mystery to Hansen. “We had a lot of success at Marshfield when it was dirt,” Hansen said. “We’d bounce around, and travel to other tracks both the to the west like Cedar Lake and Menominee, and when Seymour was a half-mile we’d race there too, when it re-opened again in the early 1980’s. I’d have to guess we’re at over 100 wins, at least.”
Hansen had a wild wreck on the frontstretch one year at Seymour in the mid-1980’s. “I remember getting hauled away in an ambulance,” Hansen recalled. “I got caught up in a wreck on the frontstretch of the old half-mile when it was all wooden boards. I spun around and around. Bill Herr (ironically, another Central Wisconsin competitor) hit me in the driver’s door, and I wound up getting a big sliver in my leg. My feet were on the ground when the car finally stopped spinning around. I thought I was okay until I tried getting out of the car and I couldn’t walk. I ended up at a hospital in Green Bay that night.”
Hansen recalled the brief, but wild “wedge-car era” from roughly 1980 through 1983ish where the dirt late models morphed into wild-looking creatures with huge, rear plexiglass spoilers and wide, “humper” tires. “I remember once Billy (Herr) bought a car from Freddy Smith once,” Hansen recalled. “It was the car that won the World 100. Billy and Dave Hesch had sprint car tires they ran on the right side of their cars. Those two guys were the ones to beat. During that wedge-car era, there really weren’t any rules. It was like the wild, wild west. We blew a lot of motors back then, and burned up a lot of tires, too.”
Hansen was quick to credit United Midwest Promoters (UMP) president Bob Memmers for reining in the wild rules packages. “Bob saw what was happening, and somehow, he was able to get all of these track promoters and sanctioning bodies on the same page and scale back the bodies on these cars,” Hansen said. “The thing that truly ended the wedge car era was when Ray Callahan built that rear engine car that Charlie Swartz drove.”
Like any seasoned veteran who has experienced all of the ups and downs of dirt track racing over the decades, Hansen hasn’t chased points for many years, and simply “picks and chooses” when and where he races with his Seubert Calf Ranches sponsored late model. “We don’t chase points, and because of that we are often at a pretty big disadvantage,” Hansen admitted. “The technology in the dirt late model world literally changes within weeks. And the truth is, there is simply no way you are going to beat the guys who are running even two nights a week anymore. It’s just not going to happen. These cars are so fine-tuned that if you miss the setup by even the slightest bit, you are out to lunch. The dirt late models nowadays drive more like an asphalt car. You’re either right on the money, or you’re not. It’s that simple.”
The “Just For Fun” slogan on Hansen’s rear spoiler illustrates his game plan entering his final season for 2026 with “no points racing” in the cards.
With the exception of just one season where Hansen admittedly did more motorcycle riding than racing, the Spencer veteran has been making left hand turns for 49 seasons. 2026 will make it Hansen’s 50th year behind the wheel. “The car I’m driving is owned by Mike (Seubert), “ Hansen explained. “Mike said to me that if I was going to end my career, it was going to be in a late model and not in a modified. Times have changed, and I simply don’t like working on these cars like I did when I was younger. It’s harder to get committed pit crew members these days, too. Much different than when I started, for sure.”
With the wins very tough to come by, Hansen admitted that bringing the car home in one piece seems like a victory to him these days. “When I raced in a modified, those cars were a lot slower,” Hansen said. “But, they are also harder to drive than a late model because their front ends don’t work. There is some forgiveness yet with the late models, but not a whole lot. You can still get yourself out of trouble. We run a WISSOTA motor in our car. With an open motor though, it’s a lot easier to get yourself out of trouble if you happen to make a mistake on the track.”
The driving style for a modern-day dirt late model, according to Hansen, is to never slow down. “It’s 100 percent different from decades ago, because these cars get into the corner and they really stick. Years ago, you’d have to feather your brake foot to get through the corners. Nowadays, you just turn the wheel and you better make sure you’re on the gas. These cars just don’t spin anymore.”
Having been in the game for close to a half-century, Hansen opined upon the current state of dirt late model racing on the eastern half of Wisconsin. “There just aren’t enough cars left, and maybe Shawano should team up with another track like Plymouth and go to something like every other week of racing,” Hansen suggested. “Shawano is in a tough spot, geographically. To the south, it’s mostly open motor late models. To the west and the north, it’s pretty much WISSOTA. There’s no easy answer to fix this. That restrictor plate on the open motors does even things up quite a bit. Half-mile tracks are tough on cars. It does take more to fix money and time wise when you wreck on a half-mile. The racing surface at Shawano has gotten a lot better later in the year, so that’s good.”
Hansen’s main pit crew member is Mike Rogers. Hansen’s team of marketing partners includes Seubert Calf Ranches, Hansen Trucking & Excavating, Colby Chrysler Center, Freedom Race Lifts, Abby Ford, Haas Inc., Laser Images Racewear & Ultra Force Machines.