08/25/2026
This past weekend was the inaugural 🌟North Star Shootout🌟 race at our home track of MQMRA - Little Elko Speedway. Friday night we celebrated the week 10 race winners and Eli got his first medal of the year🤩 Then it was time to qualify under the lights!! Eli would qualify fourth in Junior Honda and Kelby would qualify first in Senior Honda and Light World Formula, and fourth in Light 160. A solid way to start the weekend!
📌Saturday brought the first round of heats and features. Eli came out on fire winning his heat race! 🥇 He passed smoothly, looked confident and drove a pretty consistent line which are the three things we are working on with him!
•Kelby had an amazing opportunity to attend the MN Vikings game on the field on Saturday so unfortunately only was able to race his Senior Honda Heat race on Saturday where he took the lead and never looked back!🥇
•Eli’s heat win, along with his passing points, gave him the pole position for the feature - and boy was he excited! Unfortunately on lap one he was spun sending him to the back 😭. Then, he was passing for position and tangled with another driver causing him to flip - again😑 three weeks in a row… After a group of amazing handlers hyped him up after tipping him back on all fours, and continuing to give him lots of encouragement leading to green, Eli slowly picked off cars and found himself finishing in third 🥉It was a rollercoaster of emotions as he came off, but we worked through them and took time to practice later that afternoon with Leighton Rose Racing🖤
📌 Sunday brought a typical points day for our home track. Eli struggled again and my mom heart just shattered for him. He went to pass for second, spun and got hit with only two laps remaining and it killed all the confidence we had started to rebuild. He started last in the feature and we amped him up to pass cars. Unfortunately a car spun coming out of the corner just a few cars ahead of Eli and he was unable to avoid it, destroying the whole right front of his car. 😭 Once again, an amazing group of handlers jumped in and truly tried their hearts out to get him back on the track, but unfortunately those ARC cars are tricky and it didn’t happen. He was devastated.
•Kelby started the day off with a bang winning all three of his heat races. After the invert he started deeper in the field in each class, but was able to run solid races and finish on the podium in all three!
~Senior Honda🥈
~Light World Formula 🥇
~Light 160 🥇 **Thank you Wiebusch Racing for lending us a rear axle after we found out ours was bent Saturday morning! (Bullet Motorsports QM😉)
🌟Overall the weekend was a success from the standpoint of a participant. There are always a few tweaks to be made, but the MQMRA board did a fantastic job for the first year!! Thank you to all of them for their time and effort in the event! Hopefully it grows each year and becomes an annual event for many quarter midget teams!
🗓️We will be at home one last time before the next NASCAR Youth Series race at American Quarter Midget Association September 11-12!
Thank you to everyone who cheers us on each and every week - we appreciate you!!!
Eilen & Sons Trucking
Graber Auto Body
Ultimate QM
BRE
Raptor Racing Engines
TOBY Race Products
Velocita by Borsos Racing / Velocita-USA
Jimmie Phelps's Mission Impossible Racing - CSI Shocks
