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Dakota Classic Modified Tour Preview:

Best of the best to compete in Minot Sunday

Adam Papin/MDN Minot’s Adam Goff, in the No. 30A car, tries to move around Bismarck’s James Berg, in the No. 46 car, during Heat #2 of the IMCA Stock Car division at Nodak Speedway on Tuesday night. Goff will race in the Dakota Classic Modified Tour starting today.

The best IMCA Stock Car (Stock) and Modified drivers from across the country and Canada will be making western North Dakota the center of the dirt track racing universe starting tonight in Jamestown, when the 34th Annual Dakota Classic Modified Tour starts. On Sunday, the Tour will invade Nodak Speedway here in Minot.

After the weekend races, the Tour will travel to Estevan Motor Speedway, in Estevan, Saskatchewan on Monday, July 10. From there, it is off to Williston Basin Speedway in Williston on Tuesday and Southwest Speedway in Dickinson on Wednesday, before championship night at Dacotah Speedway in Mandan on Thursday, July 13.

The stacked field includes three IMCA National Champions, and six IMCA Super Nationals Champions, a series of races that could be considered the Super Bowl of dirt track racing. There are a number of past Tour winners who have entered as well.

“It truly is a crown jewel on anybody’s resume,” said Joren Boyce, a three-time champion of the Tour (Modifieds, 1998-99, 2001) from Minot. “I grew up with my dad saying you’re only as good as your competition. When the tour comes to town, if you’re not, you know, running as good as you thought you should, it will always be a learning experience.”

Among the drivers confirmed are defending champion Tom Berry Jr., from Des Moines, Iowa. Berry won the Tour in the Modified division in 2019 and 2022. He is also the defending champion in the Super Nationals, and he won the IMCA National Championship in 2020 in Modifieds. He also won every Modified feature in last year’s Tour.

Joining Berry are national champions Jason Wolla (Modifieds, 2017) and William Gould (Modifieds, 2013). Other Super Nationals Champions include Cody Laney (2021), Kyle Strickler (2014-15) and Jeff Taylor (2012).

There will be a new champion in the Modified division this year, as Berry will only be able to compete in four of the six nights. Trent Drager, a Sykeston native, will be back to defend his title in the Stock division.

At least fifteen states will be represented with numerous drivers coming down from Canada to compete.

While there will certainly be a national and international flavor to the races, that doesn’t mean there is a lack of homegrown talent either. North Dakota and the Minot area will be well represented.

One of the local favorites is Adam Goff, who currently leads Nodak Speedway’s season points race in Stocks, which he will be competing in.

“Adam is having a good year this year,” said Boyce. “He’s having the best year in the stock cars. He’s got a good presentation. Barring some goofy mechanical issues, I see nothing that will keep him out of a top five finish overall.”

It’s Goff’s third Tour start, and like Joyce, he understands a lot has to go right during the week to win.

“We get a lot of out-of-town talent that comes in, and I think it’s great because you’re only as fast as the guys you race weekly,” said Goff. “When you bring these other guys in with different driving styles, it definitely raises the bar.”

Goff is looking forward to Jamestown, because it is one of the few times that Stock gets to race there. However, his favorite track is north of the border.

“My favorite track is probably Estevan,” said Goff. “That’s the one I think the local talents are really going to shine up there and I’m excited for that.”

Six straight nights. Six tracks in six different cities. Two countries. All of it makes the week as much of an endurance race as anything.

“What I was doing in my peak performance on the Tour was I was doing most of my work after the races,” said Boyce. “I felt it was just advantageous to not have the sun shining on me. It was better to go to bed at four or five in the morning than it was to try to hammer out issues when I drove to the next town, trying to get creative at three o’clock in the afternoon.”

“It’s a marathon, and when you have a good night right off the get go, you are committed to try and do the best you can. Whoever wins it all will have had a good first night. That seems to be a fact of the finish.”

Goff looks up to the generation of drivers who came before him including drivers like Boyce and Nathan Burke, a driver from Minot who won the first two Stock titles in the Tour in 2008-09, and a third in 2011, and Wayne Johnson, a forty-year racing veteran in Minot, who is retiring at the end of the year.

“You look up to those guys,” said Goff. “You start talking about how many feature wins those guys have gotten to or track championships, state championships, all that stuff. You always want to be good or better.”

“I wish we could keep getting those cars in there, but they’ve done the tour. They’re not going to go over and run their bodies to the ground on something they’ve already accomplished. I understand that.”

One driver who will factor in the Modifieds is Travis Hagen, of McGregor. Hagen finished second in last year’s Tour, and he is coming off five wins in eight races, including winning three straight wins in the same weekend last month. His latest win, at Nodak Tuesday night, was a wire-to-wire win where he was dominant.

Boyce sees another competitor who might emerge as a favorite over the course of the week: Mandan’s Shawn Strand.

“He was one of the five cars battling it out for the third position in last week’s Modified feature at Nodak,” said Boyce. “But as I shared on Dirt Weekly, I really have seen him driving a part of track that reflects what is going to need to happen during the tour, and that’s racing in the center of the track competitively. I thought he was spending a lot of time there trying to get in the mental zone, the mechanical zone of being good.”

Bottineau’s Gabriel Deschamp is a youngster to keep an eye on. The teenager currently leads the season points standings at Nodak in SportMods Division and sits seventh in the Stock Division. He will be racing in both divisions during the Tour.

No matter which drivers conquers the Tour, fans will be the biggest winners, as they will enjoy some of the best racing they will get to see this summer.

Nonetheless, Goff hopes to see a local driver finish on top.

“Honestly, it’s just cool when a local guy wins this thing in the stock cars. It’s phenomenal for that to happen.”

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