Crazy is the word that sums up an all over off season that will shortly lead us into the 2018 race season. When looking at the race scene as a whole, North Dakota has seen some landscape changes this year. In under a month two massive announcements shook the sprint car scene. First, look at the sprint world; Mark Dobbmeier and Jimco have gone seperate ways just a few weeks before the NOSA season kicks off at River Cities. In what seems to be a varying opinion of when and where to race the two parties have mutually separated. The sprint scene saw another hit when the announcement that the Buffalo Wild Wings ceasing operations. While the team did have their fair share of issues, mainly keeping a consistent driver, one would have to say that they did find a winning formula with Dusty Zomer behind the wheel. However, not all changes were negative. For the first time the Western Dakota Sprint Series will pair up with the NOSA sprints at the Governor's Cup. The two associations look crank things up a bit at the governors cup as they will battle for two nights at the Dacotah Speedway. Speaking of the Western Dakota Sprints, they have found a home for the 2018 season as the majority of their races will take place at Devils Lake Speedway. Not to be outdone the NOSA series will return to South Dakota for a weekend of races and will continue to boost another strong season.
While the sprints had a crazy off season the modifieds were also affected during the off season. River Cities will host the King of the Bullring for IMCA modifieds the night before the Dakota Mod Tour. Not only will they race for $1,000 but after the races there will be a Dirt Dominator bracket style race. This has caught a lot of attention nation wide as a popular event. The IMCA modifieds will be making more appearances this year at Sheyenne Speedway as they have been added four times to the schedule. The sport mods and midwest mods see two noticeable events for them one being the Dakota Trackside Tougher than Dirt Tour and the other being the Golden Hammer Classic at Devils Lake. Both the IMCA sport mods and the Wissota midwest mods will see features paying $5,000 to the winner with a Wissota vs. IMCA grudge match with the winner getting $1,000.
The fender classes saw some changes take place during the off season as well. River Cities will not be the only track running late models on a weekly basis as Devils Lake has added them to the majority of their schedule. Speaking of late models, it seems that their opportunities to run different Dakota tracks are shrinking. The Dacotah Speedway has cut them from their schedule this year as the Super Show has been dropped and replaced with the 40/40 Iron Man race and the Governor's Cup has switched to a 2 day show for the NOSA and the Western Dakota Sprint series. While not it is not confirmed that the late models have been dropped it is safe to assume that they have been dropped from the Governor's Cup. Late model races will still be afforded plenty of opportunities following the NLRA and various shows scattered about the state.
The street stock class has had an interesting off season. First, they were dropped from Southwest Speedway, then they were brought back and for now they will have a big $1,000 to win show on June 30. The new 40/40 Ironman race also will have a big race for either the street stocks or the hobby stocks at Dacotah Speedway. This race is taking the place of the SUPER SHOW that has failed to draw the larger fields of late models as hoped at Dacotah Speedway. The 40/40 spotlights the tracks strong fields of street stocks and modifieds. Fun fact, Dacotah Speedway holds the highest weekly average of Wissota Street Stocks.
The season looks to packed with marque events for all classes across the state. Now all we have to do is what for the weather to finally play nice and allow the tracks to clear and dry out.