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IRA Lightning Sprints Hall of Fame Inductees – Class of 2023

ILS added 4 more inductees to its Hall of Fame this past season. After receiving the nominations, the voting panel which consists of current HoF members along with the club historian and 2 board members agreed to elect Romy Baus, Nick Sheridan, Mike Neau, and Larry Neau to the ILS Hall of Fame – class of 2023.

Jeff Wesell was gracious enough to act as emcee for the HoF induction ceremonies.

Below are write-ups for the new inductees...

Romy Baus:
While current and past Inductees certainly have earned the honor, truthfully without Romy, there may not indeed have been a club or the opportunities that have come from his initial efforts.

He began racing snowmobiles in 1977 in his twenties racing a Mercury Snowtwister with the USSA Central division until the mid 80's. A short stint on the dirt with AMA Flat Track Motorcycles then led to 3-Wheeler Racing both Motorcross and Flat Track in the summer and Ice Racing in the winters. Between the three different disciplines of racing, Romy won well over one hundred races.

In the late 80's he stumbled upon an article in Open Wheel Magazine about Mini Sprints. The closest group at the time was in Missouri so he made a trip down to check them out and was hooked these cars, following the American Mini Sprint Association for a season before then purchasing a complete setup from a "fella" in Kansas City.

His intentions were to race the car in Indiana and Ohio where there was weekly races as well as get in on promoting these types of cars back in Wisconsin. During this time while attending a race he met a gentleman by the name of Mike Hansel from Appleton. Mike so happened to know the promoter at Chilton Raceway whom allowed both Romy and Mike to exhibition their cars on Friday nights. Other tracks throughout the area also let Romy display and run exhibition laps in the hopes of building interest.

It worked. Soon enough there was enough cars for a heat race, then two heat races and so on. Romy worked with the folks running Wilmot Speedway at the time and they became the home track of the then named the Wisconsin Mini Sprint Association or WIMSA.

Romy's efforts and dedication got him in with the series being offered dates along with the IRA Sprint Cars and World of Outlaws when they visited Plymouth, Beaver Dam and Hales Corners. He also helped get the club onto the roster for the first Indoor Race at Milwaukee's Mecca arena – which he of course, competed in.

While juggling the efforts of working with tracks and other series for dates, Romy would help new car owners & drivers not only at the track but at home or even making the effort to go to someone else's home to help with building or repairing a car.

If you know Romy, he kept a pristine racecar. Show quality. He took great pride in that #74 and was meticulous on its appearance and performance. He knew that it helped not only win races but the sharp car also brought folks with interest in getting into the sport.

During his Mini Sprint/ Lightning Sprint career Romy won the 1992 and 1993 club Championships. He's won countless heat races and features to the likes that he never really kept statistics of them as he said "It was a great group of guys back then. We raced, had fun and if someone needed help whether on the way to the races or at the track it was there. It was great"

Without a doubt, Romy was one of the men whom literally built the foundation of this amazing club and opened the doors at tracks for us to race on.

Nick Sheridan:
Nick grew up going to the races and was hooked on Sprint Car racing in 1985. He always dreamed of racing but it wasn’t until after an almost live ending illness which caused the loss of his limbs that he realized that you only live once! So, after surgeries and rehab Nick set out to find his first race car and in the year 2000 started racing and was hooked for life!!

As a solo racer, with no crew help, Nick never ran for points or a full season, however he always took great pride on building, painting and loading and unloading his cars by himself.

Always thankful for the sponsors and at times, the helping hands at the track, Nick achieved 6 Feature wins, multiple Heat Race wins, and several Quick Times.

Sprint Car Racer Tommy Sexton gave Nick his nickname of The Prosthetic Outlaw after Nick won a feature with Tommy close on his heals in back in 2010.
His biggest highlight of racing was the opportunity to race and win with his Mother and Family watching.

Nick has served on the clubs Board of Directors since 2019 and is the Club Historian.

Nick has been an inspiration to all of us, overcoming his obstacles and living his dream.

Mike Neau:
Mike was born a fan of racing. By looking through his father’s racing memorabilia, or the weekly visits to Wilmot Speedway to watch the sprint cars and the “original” modifieds in front of near capacity crowds in the mid 1980’s…he was hooked. When he couldn’t be at the track, he would literally tear up the back yard with the lawn mower doing ovals in the grass while listening to Mike Babicz’s voice carry over the PA to nearby Salem on most summer Saturday nights. Mike was obsessed with sprint cars – filling his sketch book with countless drawings of the likes of Kim Mock, Al Winker, and Smokin Joe Symoens, just to name a few. He also had remote controlled sprint cars and even designed and built his own highly detailed sprint car from legos all before the age of 10. The dream from early on was to race a sprint car at Wilmot.

However, over the next 20 years, other things like playing competitive baseball, playing and recording music professionally, and attending UW-Milwaukee to earn a degree in mechanical engineering put that dream on the back burner. The itch was always there, but never seemed feasible. Mike and his dad, Larry would continue to visit Wilmot periodically over that time, but during a visit to the Kenosha County Fair race in 2011, that itch was brought back to the forefront. They would watch the IRA sprints and the WIMS mini sprints that night and figured the mini sprints would be the best bang for the buck and thought “what better time than now?”

Over the next few months, Mike and Larry would start to acquire cars, parts, tools, accessories, and a trailer. Mike would even reach out to a few drivers to do some research. The plan was to race a 2 car mini sprint team in 2012 with both Mike and Larry fielding cars.

The 2012 WIMS season would see Mike and his dad competing in the largest field of regulars the series has seen in the past 11+ years with a healthy dose of 5 rookies. Mike was a ‘true rookie” though, as he had zero previous racing experience at any level and never even stepped foot in the pits of any track. He was as green as they come at the ripe age of 31.

Mike and Larry then assembled a crew with the Hoegsted family as Kris, Amanda, and Kris Jr. were crucial to the team getting up to speed and familiar with setups, and changes, and just overall help with maintaining a 2 car team.

After just 2 hot lap sessions in each of the 2 practice days leading up to opening night, the dream of racing at Wilmot was finally realized. Mike qualified for his first feature through the heats on his first ever night of racing. Mike quickly discovered that 2012 was going to be a season of many firsts…both good and bad. Throughout the season Mike racked up his first DNF, first flip, first top 10, first quick time, first heat win, first top 5, and on the last race of the season – his first feature win, which not only put an exclamation point on the season, but also the rookie of the year standings as Mike would come out on top after a very close battle all year long.

Over the next 2 seasons, Mike would just operate a single car team as Larry would officially retire from driving. Over this time, he continued to be a strong competitor while continuing to rack up quick times and wins and would start to make contributions to the WIMS board with suggestions on how to make things better as well as compiling data and statistics for the club (bring an engineer, he loves data and analyzing it). However, he abruptly retired early from racing at the end of the 2014 season and sold everything racing related he had to start a family. This wouldn’t last long, however.

Mike took off the entire 2015 season as he and Sarah had their first son Carter in September. Then in early 2016, Larry got the itch to go racing again and assembled a new team and hired Mike as a driver. They raced a part time schedule in 2016 and picked up a win in their 4th night out. In 2017, he went back to full time, welcomed his son Grady mid-season (winning a feature just hours before his birth) and over the next 7 seasons, would mature as a driver and produce numerous quick times and heat wins as well as double digit feature wins en route to club championships in both 2019 and 2022 with a Wilmot track championship in 2022 as well. Mike would then go on to compete at the 2023 Lightning Sprint Nationals where some of the best drivers across the country assembled to race a 4 day event at 4 different tracks. Mike would end up representing the ILS club very well as he would go on to win night 2 and finish 2nd , just 4 points shy of the title, while being the only driver to win a heat, dash, and feature during the event. It’s safe to say that Mike has positioned himself as well respected, accomplished racer, not just within the club, but nationally as well.

But Mike has also gained respect off the track. He’s been elected to the club’s board of directors for the last 5 seasons and has spent a lot of time both in the offseason and during the season to coordinate meetings, generate agendas and meeting minutes, research and discuss rules from other clubs, and handle all of the scheduling for the club. Mike was integral in getting the MRP website setup as well as continuing to keep stats and data from every season and uploading them to the site. He has also received multiple “Above and Beyond” awards for his dedication to the club and determination to grow the club and continue to make it better.

Larry Neau (Car Owner):
Larry started racing at Wilmot in 1973, running a few years before entering college. He was back racing in 1979 and in 1980 switched to pavement racing at Lake Geneva Raceway and Slinger Speedway up till again stepping away in 1982. Larry came back and raced (vintage) Modifieds in 1987 and 1988 and then finally retired from driving duties per orders from his wife after racing a season with the Lightning Sprints with his son, Mike in 2012. He would then switch to car owner and crew chief duties going forward.

Larry started Dream Chaser Racing in 2016 after convincing Mike to come out of driving retirement and race under the new Team and Name. Dream Chaser Racing has always been a family affair since day one with Daughter's Christa, Katie, and Heather all part of the crew. Together they would help to promote the sport and community engagement through their Facebook page as well as running fan giveaways including Jr Mechanic of the Race, Tool Box, Bicycle Giveaways and the Father’s Day Weekend Bungee Cord giveaway program. Once Larry and the family got those all going their next step was building the teams’ crew with people whom also embraced the same mission.

In 2017 Larry expanded the Dream Chase to a two car team, wanting to try different setups and ideas on each car and build the team notebook. That year there were no goals on winning, it was all about having fun ...together.

The 2019 season brought about a different approach. Larry had it in his mind that it was now time to go for a Championship and expressed this with son Mike. To focus on his mission, the team went back to fielding a single car and by the end of the season Dream Chaser Racing led by Larry along with driver Mike won the championship. It was the first of several to come.

After the 2019 Championship year the team again went back to a two car operation after having an incredible opportunity to have Nick Petska join Dream Chaser Racing. One bad night for both Mike and Nick spoiled the championship chances for 2020, but Petska would give Dream Chaser their second series championship and first Wilmot track championship in 2021. The team enjoyed much success and had a LOT of fun together.

Petska would shortly retire from driving which then brought the opportunity for Larry to bring in another pilot for their potent stable. Enter long time competitor Mark Heinert coming aboard. Larry promised Mark a Championship winning season since Mike was transitioning to a part-time racer however the racing gods had other plans as all of Mike’s off-nights ended up being rainouts and Mike would end up winning the 3rd team Series championship and it’s 2nd Wilmot championship.

For 2023, Larry again expressed to Mark his determination on getting him that elusive Championship and this past season the duo made that happen – for both the Series and Wilmot. Mission accomplished for both Larry and of course, Mark! This feat was both the third Series and Track championship in a row for the team with as many drivers, and the fourth overall Series championship for Larry's beloved Dream Chaser Racing in 5 years

Larry has served on the club board of directors since 2019 and as a car owner has won features every year since starting the team in 2016 totaling 36 wins to date. That stat puts Larry at over a 40% feature winning percentage since 2016, 48% feature winning percentage since 2019 and the most impressive statistic of winning 22 of the last 27 club feature events spanning over 3 seasons, an 81% win rate! And, as mentioned earlier – 4 IRA Lightning Sprint Series Championships and 3 Wilmot Track Championships, with 3 different drivers.

In Larry's words .... "None of this would be possible without the help of our great sponsors and the great people that have driven our race cars. I am truly humbled to have been in Victory Lane 36 times as a car owner ... Thank You all for getting us there."

Hall of Fame nominations will be open for the 2024 season through June 30th, 2024

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