This season Braden Brauer set out to race new tracks hours aways and win the WISSOTA street stock national championship. So far, he’s earned 30 wins in 62 starts. His latest victory came last weekend at Redwood Speedway in Minnesota.
“We have 14 wins at different tracks we were never at before,” Brauer, of Eyota, Minnesota, said. “We raced nine hours away at Thunder City [Speedway] in Ontario and Dead Horse Creek Speedway in Morden, Manitoba; eight hours to Victory Lane Speedway in St. Adolphe, Manitoba, and won two nights in a row.”
The season didn’t start off well. Just three weeks into the season he wrecked his primary car. Fortunately, he had a backup, which he has steered for the rest of the year and won so many races with.
Brauer competes four to five nights a week. He and his brother Kolton haul their street stocks together. Brauer’s girlfriend, Nora Kramer, accompany them. Kramer’s family and friends Scott Huinker and Greg and Alex Wright also help when they can.
“Timing is everything,” said Brauer. “If we don’t wreck anything, we need at least two hours before the races start to do maintenance and change gears. That means driving all night, stopping at a hotel, or sleeping in a rest area.”
For most of his racing career, his father, Jeff, came along to help as well.
“My dad worked with me and Kolton until recently, when he got really sick,” Brauer said. “He has been diagnosed with cancer.”
With success comes friends, but also some foes, too.
“Most of the time, the racing is clean,” Brauer said. “Once in a while we pick up an enemy who tries to take me out, but so far, they have been unsuccessful. When winning this many races, you pick up more enemies than friends on the racetrack. Even so, we have made a lot of new friends everywhere we go.”
Braden Brauer hopes to win 34 or more features. That mark would tie him for third on the all-time wins list for a single season. Tim Johnson holds the record with 51, Curt Myers had 49 and Parker Anderson had 34. However, he’s perhaps most proud of the number of tracks he’s competed at, a total of 14 across five states and two provinces.
“We’re the only racers going to as many tracks this season,” said Brauer. “There are some drivers within 15 shows of us.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
