Over the course of nearly three decades, Dave Mass has earned numerous championships. Among them, five WISSOTA super stock national championships. However, his greatest achievement might be his most recent one: the WISSOTA Late Model Challenge Series championship. More than a total of 140 drivers attempted to race in the competitive tour.
“It’s so hard, so competitive, you have to really work to win,” Dave, of East Bethel, Minnesota, says. “For me, that makes it fun.”
Dave has raced a variety of classes, but late models hold a special place in his heart.
“Everything gets better when you get behind the wheel of the late model,” Dave says. “The speed, the competition and the technical aspect of racing a late model are what draws a driver to want to race late models.”
He entered the season with the intent of just racing the first seven races of the WISSOTA Late Model Challenge Series schedule.
“With a couple of seconds and three thirds at the start of the season, I decided to stick with the Challenge Series,” Dave says. “We were rolling smoothly all season — I didn’t expect to win a feature, and I decided I would set my goal to finish in the top five.”
Then came Labor Day week.
Dave won his first Late Model Challenge Series feature, one of the twin 25s at Gondik Law Speedway. Two days later, he earned another win at Grand Rapids Speedway.
“I wanted a win in the Challenge Series, racing against the big dogs, and I got two,” Dave says. “Suddenly, I was in the hunt going into the WISSOTA 100 week. I had a 20-point lead.”
With a fourth and a fifth during the WISSOTA week at I-94 Speedway, Dave Mass finished 25 points ahead of Shane Sabraski.
“My whole life I thought late models were the ticket,” Dave says. “To win the series and to be on the list with Pat Doar, John Kaanta, A.J. Diemel, Cole Searing and Tyler Peterson — some of the drivers I looked up to forever — is so meaningful. It’s hard to describe.”
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.
