2025 Dairyland 8hr Enduro

Have any of you kart racers ever thought to yourself: “Man, I wish this race was just a little bit longer”? Maybe you ran out of time to make that race-winning pass, or you needed a few more laps to carve through the field, or maybe it just felt like it was over too quickly. I’ve definitely found myself there before, especially given most of my races are done in 10-15 minutes. What if we tried a little bit longer, say, 8 hours?

Enter Badger Kart Club and their annual Dairyland 8-hour endurance race. Every year about 30-40 drivers and a handful of teams form together to take on this challenge, and this year marked my second appearance in the 8 hour. Just like the year before, I would be racing on the Bobby Krug Racing Services team, with returning drivers Tommy Shereck, James Mann, Seth Hanlon, and new to the team, Noah Nelson. Last year our team finished 5th after encountering some mechanical issues in my stint, and this year we were hoping to say goodbye to bad luck and finally get the result we were after.

On the Friday before the race, we had a team practice were everyone got a turn driving the kart. Aside from Badger local Noah Nelson, this would be our first time around this track since last year’s enduro. Each of us started out the day strong, and through some coaching and some driver-to-driver feedback, we were all able to run competitive pace, similar to one another given our weight differences.

Fast forward to Saturday and it was race day. The race would start at 10am. local time and run for 8 hours straight until 6pm. The rules of this event state that we can only start the race with one gallon of fuel, and only add one gallon of fuel in each of our pit stops, which would be regulated to a minimum 5-minute stop time. The rest was completely up to strategy, skill, and luck. Our strategy was to run flat out the entire race and attempt to build a fuel buffer with each stop, and our drivers would be sent out in order of lightest to heaviest, so the only changes needed between stops would be weight removal.

With all of that set in place, it was time to get the 8 hours started. We drew out of a cup for our starting order, and we drew dead last. This race has a Le-Mans style standing start similar to the Quincy Grand Prix, but rather than engines running and wait for the green, the engines start dead, and at the drop of the green a teammate runs from the opposite end of the track to start the kart for the driver. Tommy was behind the wheel for the opening stint, and I was elected as the runner. I stood about 50 feet behind Tommy, with 8 other runners to my left, all waiting for the green. Seconds later, the green flew, and I sprinted towards the 51 with all the stamina I had. I reached the kart, started the kart on the first pull, and as I pushed Tommy away he passed almost everyone in front of him getting to third out of the first turn, right behind the leaders. The race was on.

We continued cheering Tommy on as he quickly got around second and started challenging for the lead. He and the lead car traded positions for the majority of the opening stint until Tommy came in for our first stop around the 45 minute mark. This is when we started seeing some different strategies starting to develop. Some teams came in around the same time we did, and some teams running more lean at the start stayed out longer. As Tommy soldiered on through the second part of his stint, we could only hope the strategy would fall in our favor as the laps went on.

Come about 11:45 and it was time for Tommy to hand the reigns off to Seth Hanlon after a smooth-sailing opening stint. Seth would now have the task of running a whole stint without stopping with the fuel buffer Tommy made. As the rest of the team ate our lunch we watched Seth power through relentlessly for nearly another hour and 45 minutes, once again trouble-free. However, coming off the track from his stint, Seth rolled over the scales a few pounds light, earning us a 5 minute penalty on top of our 5 minute pit-stop. You always hear people say that a second can feel like a year in racing, so you can imagine what 5 minutes of standing still felt like.

After the longest 10 minutes of our lives, we were finally let off the leash again, and despite the setback we were still running in a fairly good position, with a podium or even a win very much still on the table with more than half the race left to go. In order to make that happen, however, we had to make it the most perfect 5 hours of racing that we had ever done. We handed the 51 off to Noah Nelson for the next leg of the race, and he did not disappoint. Lap after lap, slowly chewing away that gap to the race leader, not letting up for a second. After a grueling 2 hours in the heat of the day with only one 5-minute stop for a breather, Noah got us back in a position where we could safely fight in the top three if nothing went wrong. And with pressure building, it was my turn.

With the fuel buffer Noah had built and with three hours left, both me and James would be running 90 minutes apiece without stopping to end the race. I was first up, and my target was to push hard and run laps between 55.5 and 56.0. Within a few laps the kart I was up to speed, and the kart was handling like a dream. Within a few laps I was running consistent mid-55’s, getting more comfortable in the kart as the stint went on. Come about 20 to 25 minutes into my stint and I start feeling a slight vibration in the chassis. At first I think nothing of it, then it starts to escalate. A few laps later, it feels like the rear axle is about to fall off the kart, and my times are falling off by seconds. Something catastrophic has happened to the kart, I’m helplessly trying to hang on.

Eventually the team realizes something is off and brings me in early suspecting that one of my rear tires is going flat. We get the kart up on the stand, and it wasn’t a flat tire, but the right-rear bearing cassette had completely folded in on itself (pictured below). Turns out my hypothesis of the rear axle falling off was correct. We all froze for a second trying to process how this could have happened and if we could even continue.

Determined that this team finish this race, Matt Zigaitis and Joe Palmisano think of a quick solution to hammer it back in place and secure it enough to prevent the issue from happening again. With that quick thinking and hard work, I was back in the kart right as the timer struck 5 minutes and sent off to continue my stint. If that isn’t determination, I don’t know what is. Because of that catastrophe and our temporary fix for the problem, I was told to be more gentle with the kart to prevent it from breaking again. I was able to continue on track for another 50-ish laps with no problems, and I still managed to run sub-56 second times despite my handicap. With an hour and a half left to go on the clock, it was time to hand the kart off to James for the final stint of the race.

Unfortunately by this point the results we were looking for were lost in the wind, and all we could hope for was another top 5 to match our result from last year. James pressed on, however, made the entire hour and a half stint worry-free, and made up a position on a broken down kart to put us in the top 5. When the clock finally struck 6pm, we crossed the line in P5, 26 laps down, and devastated that a podium got away from us again.

Strategy, skill, and luck. You need all three of those to succeed in an endurance racing, and today we unfortunately didn’t have that. We may have never seen the strategy materialize, and we definitely didn’t have luck on our side. I know for a fact though that we at least had the highest skill and determination out of any of the other teams present that day. This team has proven year after year that we have one of the strongest 5-driver lineups in this field, and every year our talent grows bit by bit. The constant drive for success and making up from setbacks that every member of this team showed this weekend is a testament to how hard we work for these results, and how we stay in the fight even if those results don’t come our way.

Just like Quincy, I don’t want this to be the end of the story for this team, and I hope I can come back again to redeem myself, and hopefully leave the bad luck behind me for once.