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You work hard, take your lumps, pay your dues, and when all of the pieces of the racing puzzle start to slide together, that’s when you find yourself up front.
Or that’s how it happened for 25-year-old racer Jerimy Wagner of Melrose, Wis.
Wagner, who won the season-opening feature race in the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway’s North Country Contractors Sportsman Division two weeks ago, made steady progress in his first two or three years in the division.
Then, three years ago, he won his first feature race. Forget the fact that it happened with a motor that he borrowed from his Melrose racing buddy, Brandon Berg. The important thing is he found himself in Victory Lane.
“It was just something he had laying around,” Wagner said of the borrowed motor. “It was a backup motor, but it was good. We threw it in.”
Wagner didn’t win a feature race in the 2006 season, but he was confident that he was getting better. He found himself running up front on a more consistent basis, and when he was up there, he knew it wasn’t by accident.
Then in 2007 it happened again — he won the second feature race of his career.
“Last year, the car I had was just really fast,” Wagner said. “We hit the right setup. Jes Tenner and Brandon Berg helped me out a lot. We are all buddies over here (Melrose) and help each other out.
“Usually if somebody has a wreck we will go and help them out. They like to see good competition down there. They like to see everybody run up front.”
While race fans may find it hard to believe, these guys would rather beat their fellow racer in hard-fought, tooth-and-nail type of race, then run up to he front, blow by everybody, and leave them in their dust. What fun is that? Not much, Wagner said.
“The field is so competitive. You never know what guy is going to be hooked up that night. You pray for the best,” Wagner said. “It has been a lot of fun. The last two seasons have been a blast. A lot of work, too, but it’s paying off in the end.”
Wagner continues to take some chances with his car. In fact, this year he switched from a Chevy Monte Carlo body to a 1996 Ford Thunderbird body. He’s still got a Chevy powerplant under the hood, but that’s about to change in a few weeks, too, when he’s going to switch to a Ford motor.
Instead of part-Ford, his car will be nearly all-Ford.
“I’m kind of a Ford guy,” Wagner said. “I have been talking to Sam Andersen (former Late Model driver now living in North Carolina) a lot. Ed Gunther is building the motor. He’s built a lot of (Sportsman) engines for guys that run there (Fairgrounds Speedway). It should be good with (more power), or that’s what they tell me.”
With a 3-year-old car, a new motor, and one feature victory already under his belt, what’s next for Wagner?
“I was thinking a feature win would have been nice (this season), and we got that out of the way. We want to come this year and run for a championship. A lot of guys who have been helping me out think I got what it takes,” said Wagner, who is in seventh season in the Sportsman Division after running two years in the United Auto Supply Thunderstox Division, and one in the Feature’s Sports Bar & Grill Hornets.
Wagner’s not tooting his own horn. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, because his car doesn’t have one. Back to the point: Wagner’s colleagues in the division gave him a big pat on the back by choosing him the Most Improved Driver in the class in 2007.
“That made me feel really good. It told me that a lot of guys respect me out there and see that I am a really good driver,” said Wagner, who spends Monday through Thursday on the road, working for Isometric Contracting out of Big Lake, Minn. It’s a company that makes and installs insulated panels for walk-in coolers.
Now he faces his biggest challenge: Can he consistently win races and challenge some of the division’s best — Tenner, Berg, Randy Humfeld, Jimmy Gilster, John Olson, Larry Bolster — on a week-in and week-out basis?
“I think this year we may take some more chances and try and pass on the outside if we can,” Wagner said. “The biggest thing is to stay out of trouble.”
Jeff Brown can be reached at (608) 791-8403, or at jbrown@lacrossetribune.com
