Laurel Viera

 I was introduced to racing early while living in northwestern and north-central Iowa. I have pictures of me at three years old & up, from the middle and late 60s, standing by my stepfather’s racecar and holding his helmet. I spent my elementary years at the racetracks in the summer including my 12th birthday as trophy girl. At that time, my stepfather was building me a go-cart. (1975) My parents then split that year and the go-cart went with him and we moved to Minnesota. My attendance to the races ended there until 1985.

In 1992, I met someone who helped me get into dirt track endurance races. (100 or so cars on the track running 150 laps-usually at the county fairs) I did that for 2 summers until one of my sponsors offered to put me in a dirt track hobby stock. In 1994, I bought a used 1980 Malibu hobby stock and drove my first race on a big ½ mile dirt track in Fairmont, MN. I finished, didn’t get lapped and didn’t crash. I had met my goals for the first night. It was the beginning of a childhood fantasy come true. My first record book. A feature win came in 1995 in Jackson, MN. In 1996, my partner and I built a brand new hobby stock. 1997, we used the same chassis and in 49 starts, I had 29 top 5 finishes, 10 top 10 finishes and only 3 DNF's.

In 1998, my partner and I shared a car, which resulted in a track championship for him on Friday and a top ten finish for me on Saturday, even with missing a points night and 5 DNF's. (I had some bad luck with mechanical problems, being the second night driver) My hobbystock experience included 11 different tracks in Iowa & Minnesota and Oklahoma. In 1999, we built a new IMCA stockcar, which also was raced in 2000. We struggled those two years with numerous engine problems and race-shop problems. (Moving around to different places)

In 2001, we converted the dirt track stockcar to an asphalt NASCAR Sportsman. I am racing in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. It is a fast 5/8 mile track that the likes of Dick Trickle, Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth and the Sauter family have come from. I have been consistently qualifying around 25th out of around 40 cars a night for my first 12 weeks. I plan on spending another year in the Sportsman division on asphalt and then we’ll see what happens from there.