The Scoop
TRACKING WISCONSIN’S ALL-TIME IMCA NORTHERN SPORTMOD WINNERS
Posted on: Tuesday March 22, 2022
Shawano’s Tracy Wassenberg, shown here after a 2014 win at Seymour Speedway, remains the winningest IMCA northern sportmod feature winner in Wisconsin heading into the 2022 season with 58 victories. Wassenberg retired from oval track racing in 2015. (danlewisphoto.net)
Since the IMCA northern sportmod division was introduced to Wisconsin in the mid-2000s hundreds of drivers have cycled through the popular division.
17 years later when you add up all the Badger state’s top ranked drivers in terms of all-time feature wins, some have retired from racing, some have moved into other forms of racing.
Hazel Green’s Jason Roth, interviewed by track announcer Eric Huenefeld, remains the only active IMCA northern sportmod racer among Wisconsin’s all-time winners. (photo courtesy of Jason Roth Racing FB page)
Of the top ten only Hazen Green’s Jason Roth (ranked 9th) remains an active racer in the division with 22 sanctioned feature flags. Most of Roth’s wins came at LaFayette County Speedway in Darlington located in the southwest corner of the state. Roth plans to remain in the division in 2022 but just how often remains unseen.
Entering ’22 Shawano’s Tracy Wassenberg remains atop the leader board with 58 victories. Wassenberg captured one state crown and won track titles at his home track half-mile and also at Langlade County Speedway in Antigo. The track at Antigo hasn’t held weekly racing for many years. Wassenberg also scored the IMCA Supernationals win at Boone, Iowa in 2007.
Clintonville’s Lucas Lamberies sits second with 49 wins. The third-generation racer wasted little time bagging feature flagsand scoring track championships beginning in his teenage years and has since moved up to the IMCA modifieds where he remains a topflight driver and a threat to win whenever he rolls through the pit gate.
After retiring out of the IMCA modified class years ago Seymour’s Tim Jorgenson sits third with 38 wins. Jorgenson chased sanctioned races all over the nation in ’08 when he tied for the national crown but would up losing in the ultimate tiebreaker to Jefferson, Iowa’s Luke Wanninger. The tiebreaker was the total number of feature wins.
Jorgenson had a solid run up until the ’09 season which wound up being his last in the sportmods.
New Franken’s Brad Lautenbach (left), shown here in victory lane at Luxemburg Speedway in 2012, sits fourth among Wisconsin racers in all-time IMCA northern sportmod wins with 36. (danlewisphoto.net)
New Franken’s Brad Lautenbach sits fourth at 36 feature wins. Like Jorgenson, Lautenbach retired from racing in the IMCA modified class. Prior to that Lautenbach mopped up a pair of state titles along with a pair of track titles at his home track Luxemburg Speedway, along with titles at Seymour and Thunder Hill Raceway in Sturgeon Bay, respectively. Lautenbach remains the winningest driver in the division at Sturgeon Bay with 19 wins.
Sitting fifth is Green Bay native Troy Jerovetz at 26 wins. Jerovetz moved to Iowa years ago and remains active in the racing business and still races a stock car on occasion.
Similar to Lamberies, Seymour’s Jayden Schmidt is another third-generation driver who sits sixth in total wins at 26. After winning his first feature in 2017 and competing at the division’s highest level for six seasons, Schmidt has bumped up to the IMCA modifieds for 2022.
Oconto’s Jeremy Cota sits seventh with 24 wins. Cota’s most successful runs came at Seymour Speedway where he scored a pair of track championships in 2014 and 2015. Cota’s been retired since the ’15 season.
Hortonville’s Travis Van Straten, an IMCA stock car national champion, sits eighth with 24 wins. Roth sits ninth with 22 victories and Suamico’s Josh Long, who’s since moved up to the IMCA modifieds rounds out the top ten with 20 wins.
(A big thanks goes out to IMCA’s public relations director Bill Martin who keeps track of all the wins and has done an amazing job for that organization for many years.)
WISCONSIN IMCA Northern SportMod all time winners (top ten) entering the 2022 season
Tracy Wassenberg, Shawano, 58
Lucas Lamberies, Clintonville, 49
Tim Jorgenson, Seymour, 38
Brad Lautenbach, New Franken, 36
Troy Jerovetz, Green Bay, 27
Jayden Schmidt, Seymour, 26
Jeremy Cota, Oconto, 24
Travis Van Straten, Hortonville, 24
Jason Roth, Hazel Green, 22
Josh Long, Green Bay, 20