WDLMA celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2013, and looks for many more
Russ Scheffler sits atop of the WDLMA feature wins list with 91 wins through the 2013 season.
By Bert Lehman
When Hales Corners Speedway closed after the 2003 race season, dirt Late Model drivers in southeastern Wisconsin were left with no place to race.
With the help of Bill Behling, the Wisconsin Dirt Late Model Association (WDLMA) was formed and held its first race at The Powercom Speedzone (now Beaver Dam Raceway) on May 18, 2004. The race was won by rookie Late Model driver Tim Lemirande, who bested a field of 31 Late Models.
That race was the start of the WDLMA, which is still going strong today, as it enters its 11th season.
In the beginning, WDLMA was a traveling series, with different tracks in eastern Wisconsin hosting events for the Late Model organization.
That eventually changed, with Plymouth Dirt Track adding WDLMA Late Models to its weekly program, as did the Eastern Wisconsin Stock Car group, which hosts races at Manitowoc County Expo.
The key to WDLMA’s success was coming up with a rules package that allowed dirt Late Model cars from several sanctioning organizations to compete against each other. Rules were tweaked to equalize the cars from the different sanctions as much as possible.
This rules packaged allowed Late Model drivers from southeast Wisconsin to race against drivers from northeast Wisconsin.
Eventually tracks in northeast Wisconsin began adding occasional WDLMA dates to their race schedules.
In celebration of WDLMA reaching 10 years of racing in 2013, we take a look at some of the WDLMA drivers from over the years.
(This article first appeared in the May 2014 issue of Full Throttle Magazine.)
