Class of 2025

Darwin Brown is a member of one of the most famous racing families in the history of the Rice Lake Speedway. His father Don was inducted as a member of the inaugural class of the speedway's Hall of Fame back in 2011. But Darwin did much more than just ride the family shirt tails on the way to his hall of fame selection as his racing record at the speedway is one of the strongest in track history.

Darwin began racing at Rice Lake back in 1987 at the rather old age for a rookie driver of thirty.

He raced in the Street Stock class with his first race car being a 1973 Ford Torino with a 351 Cleveland engine in it. The car had been given to him by Jim Jones to race and Darwin figured that he spent about $250 in building the car.

It didn't take him long to win his first feature race though, as he visited victory lane in the Street Stock class for the first time in 1988. He then had a stellar career in that class with his last win coming in 1995.

He then took some time off but returned to racing nearly a decade later, this time driving a Pure Stock but again always a Ford. And he had much success in his return to racing, winning many feature races with his last win coming in 2014.

Overall, Darwin won twenty seven Street Stock features between the years of 1988 and 1995 and twenty Pure Stock feature races between 2005 and 2014. His overall win total of forty seven ranks among the top ten for all time wins at the track.

Among his achievements during those years of racing was the Street Stock point title in both 1990 and 1993 along with the Season Championsip in that same year. He was also the Pure Stock champion in 2012.

He was the Aquafest Trophy winner in 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992 in the Street Stocks and received the Best Appearing car award in both 1990 and 1991. He also won the High Riser award in 1989 and 1992.

One of his biggest wins came in 1994 when he won the final Street Stock Invitational at the track after starting the event from the tail of the field. The following year saw this race be named “The Little Dream and whe all know what that race has now progressed to become. Darwin called that win the most memorable of his racing career.

Much of his influence to race came from his father and being around the sport his whole life and Darwin's race car always carried the number 55, the same number that his father Don ran during his whole career. And of course, they were all Fords.

Some of the special people that helped him during his racing career included Tom Telitz and Thomas Marine, Dan Wohlk and Wohlk Farms and Dan Meyers of Meyers Stucco Systems.

Darwin retired from racing in 2014 at the age of fifty seven and while there are currently no Browns racing, at one time or another there have been three generations of the family making laps at the Rice Lake Speedway.

A 1975 graduate of Rice Lake High School, Darwin worked for years as a welder and painter but is now retired. He lives in Cumberland with his wife Sandy.

Brent Laursen was born into a racing family and it was inevitable that he too would race. His father Russ was one of the finest dirt track drivers ever to come out of our area and as he won feature after feature and championship after championship, Brent was witness to all this as he was growing up.

Brent started his racing career in 1969, just after graduating from Cumberland High School. He began his racing career right here at the Rice Lake Speedway, running in what was called back then the RL Stocks, a version of what we now know as Street Stocks. He had success early, winning his first feature in that class in 1970 driving a 1957 Chevy that had about $800 invested in it. He used #20 on that car but settled on the #02 for following cars and that would be the number that he used for the rest of his career.

His career in racing was just taking off when tragedy struck the Laursen family. Russ Laursen, still at the top of his game racing Sprint Cars, died on September 12th, 1970 after being severely injured in a crash while racing. It was a big blow to everyone involved in racing in this area.

Still, Brent continued to pursue his own racing career while continuing his education. Brent moved up to the Late Models where he had immediate success and his most successful years at the Rice Lake Speedway. He got his first win in 1973 and would record twelve wins in that class at Rice Lake with his last win coming during the 2001 season.

During his time racing at Rice Lake he earned Rookie of the Year honors in 1969, won the Season Championship in 1976, the Midseason and points Championship in 1977, the Late Model Invitational in 1973, the Firecracker special in 1979 and the Aquafest trophy race in 1994. His most memorable night at the track was Championship night in 1977.

He also drove Modifieds and his # 100%,Ford powered Modified won three times during the 1994 season .

And like his father, he was a traveler, hitting all the big events at tracks thorough out the upper Midwest. A condensed list of his accomplishments includes a three time Red Clay Championship winner at Ashland, track championships at Red Cedar in Menomonie, Cedar Lake championships and a three time Elmer Cook Memorial winner, plus Labor Day Shootout wins in Hibbing and the Central Wisconsin State Fair among other honors.

Brent was one of those select few drivers that could race any kind of car and he raced everything from Street Stocks to Late Models, both winged and nonwinged Modifieds and Sprint Cars and won in all of them. In all, it is estimated that he took over 300 checkered flags and well over one hundred feature wins.

In 1977 Brent was diagnosed with Hodgkins disease and underwent rounds of radiation and chemotherapy treatments that seemed to arrest the disease. However, he suffered from numerous other medical issues as time went by and he retired from racing in 2008 at the age of fifty eight.

Brent was an honor student in high school and an excellent chess player. and graduated from UW Stout. Brent worked for twenty five years as the Village Foreman for the city of Osceola and also worked for Cumberland as the Director of Public Works/Zoning Administrator, starting in 2007. Failing health forced him to retire from that job.

Tommy Sevals was a long time pitman for Brent and a long standing friendship and sponsorship from Leo Kadinger of Kadinger Auto Salvage was special to him. His brother Steve also became a racer of note in both Modifieds and Late Models and has won twenty one Late Model feature races himself at Rice Lake as he continues to race currently.

Brent's health continued to decline rapidly and he passed away on September 12th, 2010. Ironically, Brent passed away on the same date as his father, forty years later.

The Rice Lake Speedway Hall of Fame has prided itself in being a group that pays tribute to people in all facets of racing at Rice Lake, not just the drivers. The Hall of Fame has members who were selected for their driving accomplishments but there are also members that were car owners, mechanics, engine builders, track officials and even fans.

Tonight we add another category as the Hall of Fame recognizes its first member whose claim to fame was as a chassis builder.

Rick Kurshinsky has been around racing for a long time in the Rice Lake area. He started out helping Axel Dahlberg way back in the early to mid sixties with his racing cars. While Rick never raced, he had other family members who raced and he has always been close to the sport and the people involved in it.

But where he found his nitch was as a chassis builder. While he has specialized in Street Stock chassis construction, he has also built cars that raced in other classes at Rice Lake and other locations. His Street Stock chassis have been so successful that the name Kurshinsky chassis is known all over the Midwest by drivers and owners who race in that class.

He had been building chassis for nearly sixty years and while it is difficult to determine just how many wins and championships his chassis have won, it is a safe assumption that well over three hundred and fifty championships have been won by drivers racing his cars.

Rick, who grew up in Rice Lake and was educated there , never had any formal training in the arts of welding, metal bending or any of the many technical aspects of race car building. He simply taught himself how to do each of those tasks and do them well.

Virtually every “name” driver in the Street Stock class in WISSOTA has raced or is still racing a Kurshinsky chassis built by Rick in his small shop in Cameron. Hall of Famer Butch Madsen was one of the first to have much success in a Kurshinsky chassis but the list of drivers who have run them is almost endless.

A long time employee of Ebner Box Factory , Rick has in recent years started to limit the number of cars that he builds but he still puts out new cars to those customers that have been with him for many years.

Rick and his wife Darlene live in Cameron.

“It was all my Dad's fault!” That's what Dave Havel says, when asked how he got involved in dirt track racing at the Rice Lake Speedway. Dave's father Melvin “Bud” Havel was one of the all time greats at the speedway as he roared around the track is his famous “Flamin' 5” and was a member of the first class inducted into the speedway Hall of Fame way back in 2011.

Now Dave gets to join his father in the Hall of Fame, one of a handful of second generation family members to be in the Hall.

Dave's career was one done in bursts where he raced for a few years, took some time off and then in his last stretch of racing had his most success. He started racing in 1974, racing for just a part of the year with his first race car being a Pontiac Chieftain. He then raced again for two years in 1976 and '77. One year of racing in 1981 was followed by another period of inactivity until he started again in 1987 with this being his most successful time up until he finally retired from the sport in 1997 at the age of forty three.

Although that first Pontiac was numbered #515, the rest of his race cars carried those same red colors and the same #5 that his father raced so successfully.

The mid 90's were Dave's most successful time racing in the Super Stocks as he won seven feature races between 1991 and 1996. He was also the points champion and Season Champion in 1995. He won the Aquafest trophy race in 1996 and won the High Riser award in 1995. He was also the Memorial Day winner in 1996. He believes that 1995 was his best year overall and he calls winning the Season Championship race in 1995 as his most memorable race. He also won some big races at other tracks in the area during that time period.

Even in retirement he couldn't stay away from the track, serving as a volunteer from 2006 until 2023 and helping much during the ownership of Adams-Hansen at the speedway. In fact, he received the “Thanks A Lot” award for service to the speedway from Adams and Hansen following the 2013 racing season.

Dave has many people to thank for his success over the years including his late wife Vickie who he lost in 2020 after forty six years of marriage. Also his son Jason and Pete Zeman who served as his pit crew during his racing days. Jason has gone on to built his own spectacular career in racing, being the speedway all time feature win leader in the Pure Stock class before moving up to the Super Stocks.

Currently on hiatus from racing, if you arrived early to the track you probably saw Jason driving the water truck around the speedway or will soon see him helping out at crash scenes as a part of the rescue crew for the track owners. Dave also had two brothers that raced in Bruce and Larry.

Dave also wanted to mention his long time engine builder Troy Newman and the late Terry Henck who helped build his racing chassis. Also, his long time sponsors Bud's Tool and Party Rental, The Lubrication Station and Rice Lake Auto Air and Sound plus all his fans from over the years.

A 1973 graduate of Rice Lake High School, Dave worked as a welder/metal fabricator at McKenzie Supply and Equipment in Rice Lake for thirty six years, retiring in 2020. He resides in Rice Lake.