Profile On: Mark Dobmeier!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Mark Dobmeier, #13 410 Sprint
6/9/08 Update - (Please accept our apologies in omitting John Doese and Dave Lunstra on the crew of Mark Dobmeier's #13 car! While we are not placing any blame on anyone (could be due to an old driver bio card?), we do want to be sure that the hard working people on the 13 car know that they are very much appreciated!)
(Joanne Cram) This season, there seem to be several drivers trying to win the long haul award to race at Knoxville every week. 27 year old Mark Dobmeier ranks pretty high up there in the competition, with a drive from Grand Forks, North Dakota every Saturday to race. That equates to a 1350 miles, $1,000 in fuel, and about 15 hours of driving, round trip.
“Dynamite Dobmeier” as he was nicknamed a few years back, has been a fixture at Knoxville for the past two seasons, giving the top contenders a run for their money ever since he showed up. Not surprising though, given that Mark has been a career racer since he graduated from high school. Aside from driving sprint cars as much of the time as he can, Mark owns his own business; Forx Radiator, where he serves as the owner/operator. When he isn’t racing or working at his own business, he helps his dad out with his business as well, writing bail bonds at Dobmeier Incorporated.
Mark grew up around racing, as his dad, Mike was a driver also. Mike started in street cars locally around Grand Forks, and then moved up to sprints, running local tours like the NOSA or Northern Outlaw Sprint Association where they traveled around North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and some events in Winnipeg until about 15 years ago. Mark started his racing career in karts at the age of eight, and climbed the karting circuit winning five-straight track and North Dakota State championships.
Then, in his senior year of high school, Mark’s dad hit him up with a proposition: Get his school career where it needed to be by getting on the honor roll all 4 quarters of his senior year, and Mike would buy him a sprint car. Pretty good motivation huh? It worked, Mark had never had such good grades, and the summer following his senior year, he took over his dad’s 410 sprint car and has been racing full time ever since.
When he first started, Dobmeier raced locally in Grand Forks, county fairs, and anywhere else he could find a race to run. Together with high school friend, Ethan Thompson and the rest of the Dobmeier crew, the team hit the road and have rarely missed a race together since. When Mark started to win locally, he decided to take his racing to the next level, and began to travel to other tracks. He had looked up to Wade Nygaard from his area who ran down at Sioux Falls each week, so in 2002, Dobmeier decided to head to the other Dakota as well. In 2003, Mark ran Sioux Falls full time, in addition to his home tracks.
In their early days, the team racked up several accomplishments. In 1998, he achieved Rookie of the Year at River City Speedway at Grand Forks as well as the NOSA series. In 1999, he was also named Hard Charger with the same series. In 2000, he was the River City Speedway Track Champion, and in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, he earned Points Champion at River City Speedway as well. While racing with NOSA, he earned the Points Championship in 2003, 2004, and 2005. With his years at Husets Speedway, the Dobmeier team was named Team of the Year in 2004, 2005 and 2007. In addition to Team of the Year, he achieved 2nd in points in 2005, and won the championship last year. One of Mark’s career highlights thus far is winning his first Outlaw race at Wilmot, Wisconsin, while filling in for Brooke Tatnell last season. To this point in his career, Dobmeier has 96 career feature wins, and is hoping to add to that this season at Knoxville and his other tracks.
The trip to Knoxville was not only a long one, but it’s a shift in driving for Dobmeier. His family-owned team began racing down here in 2006, starting out with just a handful of races. In 2007, Brandon, South Dakota’s Dave Lunstra and the Dobmeier team joined forces to become a power to be reckoned with, running full time at Knoxville, in addition to all Dobmeier’s other race commitments, including Friday nights at River City Speedway, and Sunday’s at Husets Speedway. Mark says the biggest challenge of running at Knoxville is getting used to running a much bigger track, as he has raced mainly on the smaller tracks. Last season he was 6th in Knoxville’s overall points, and won 2 races here, earning him Rookie of the Year honors. He also took home Husets’ Track Championship last year as well.
The end of last season took Dobmeier down under as well. He paired up with Geoff Kendrick and won three events in the AHG series out of Perth. Mark also ran with the Sydney based World Series of Sprints (WSS) and ran well with them, leading one feature only to come up short on fuel with three laps to go. He had a high finish of 2nd at Murray Bridge as well, and got 5th at the “Classic”- which is a lot like Knoxville’s Nationals.
For now, Mark is having fun doing what he is doing. He and his team hope to take it as far as they can, with no lofty plans in the works for now. Mark says he always tries to up himself each year, so he is aiming for 21 plus feature wins this season, weather permitting.
Loyal crew include Mike Dobmeier; Dave Lunstra, Ethan Thompson; Wyatt Thompson; Travis Thompson; John Doese; sister, Shelly; mom, Sandy; girlfriend, Jacque; Perry Dobmeier; Sheldon Anhorn; Steven Arnold; Aaron Kroetsch; Nick Mead; and Brandon Buysse. Special thanks goes out to Billy Kain for all his help at Knoxville as well.
Sponsors of the J&J machine are Senske & Son Transfer, LePier Oil Company, Dahlsterm Motors. University Station, DeKalb Seed Company, Forx Radiator, Anderson Brothers Body Shop, Kevin “Swendog” Sondreal, Rite Spot Liquors, Miller Light, Disabled American Veterans, and Xtreme Polishing.
|