Dustin Strand: Effectively Wild

With a year plagued by rain outs, it’s been difficult for many drivers to get in as many shows as they’d probably like by this point in the season. For those with National Points on the mind, getting in as many shows as possible is crucial. Dustin Strand, the gun slinging Late Model driver out of Grand Forks, has been busy doing just that. Not only does Strand sit on top of the points for the NLRA Late Model series, but he also looks over an entire field of WISSOTA Late Model drivers. No easy task considering some of the drivers he’s ahead of include Curt Gelling, Kent Arment, and Zach Johnson. 

As for any form of racing, consistency and luck have been a key to success early on says Dustin, “We’ve actually had a lot of 2nd’s so we’re trying to better that by one more spot, but we’ve had really good luck so far.” Oddly enough consistency isn’t a word many people would typically associate with the 30 year old. Consistent is word more commonly used to describe fellow veteran drivers such as Brad Seng or Mike Balcaen. Other things that come to mind for Strand are “wild,” “hot shot,” and “how the heck did he just do that?”  Darren Evavold, part owner of River Cities Speedway says, “He’s a real hot shoe! Loves to drive around the top of the race track. He’s fast!”

Even though consistency doesn’t come to mind when describing Dustin Strand, if you look back on his stats there’s no doubt that he has been just that. Since he began racing 11 years ago in a Street Stock, Dustin has won National Championships in the NOPA Streets and WISSOTA Midwest Modifieds, 12 track championships spread out over 5 tracks, and over 200 feature wins. But with a driving style that’ll leave you on the edge of your seat just by watching him, I still have a hard time describing him as “consistent.” “Consistent” just seems to slow. So perhaps we’ll give Strand the old baseball description of “Effectively Wild.”

This year Strand has over 20 shows under his belt in a Late Model. So far this season he’s raced everywhere from Emo, Ontario to Alexandria, Minnesota, to Huron, South Dakota. He has been top 10, if not top 5 for almost every single one of them, which is quite extraordinary for only his 2^nd full season in a late model. Look for Stand weekly at River Cities Speedway on a weekly basis and when the NLRA Late Models come back to Norman County Raceway on August 8^th.

 

 

 

Mark Askelson hosts “Racing on the Radio” Thursday nights starting 6:45pm from Norman County Raceway as well as the “Racing on the Radio Review” Saturday mornings at 8:45am. Both can be heard on 106.5 KRJB and krjbradio.com.