12/22/2025
Rice Lake Speedway
Rice Lake Speedway Sets 2026 Opening Night
Rice Lake WI – Rice Lake Speeedway LLC(Kolby Kiehl, Dean Kiehl and Dick Kalow) have announced the preliminary schedule for the 2026 racing season at the Rice Lake Speedway.
“While this is just the preliminary schedule with many other special events and sponsors yet to be named, we wanted to get the word out on some of our special events so fans and race teams can start to plan for the upcoming season,” stated track spokesman Kolby Kiehl.
“Our goal is to have something special as a part of nearly every race program and fans will see a number of new divisions making appearances at the track in 2026, along with our solid five division program which will run virtually every Saturday night.”
The season begins by honoring the champions from the 2025 Rice Lake Speedway season and the track banquet will be held at a new venue this year. The St. Croix Casino in Turtle Lake will be the site of the racing banquet, with that event held on Saturday night, February 21st. Ticket information on the banquet will be announced shortly so the speedway website and face book page should be monitored for the announcement of that information.
The 2025 racing season begins with a practice session on Thursday night, April 23rd with the seventy fourth consecutive season of racing at the speedway slated to go under the green flag on Saturday night, April 25th at 6 pm. The same five classes that raced at the speedway in 2025, the Modifieds, Super Stocks, Midwest Modifieds, Street Stocks and Pure Stocks will be racing, again under the sanctioning of the WISSOTA Promoters Association.
The season will conclude on Saturday and Sunday, September 5th and 6th with the third annual Dairyland Dash featuring all five divisions plus the USRA Late Models. The USRA Late Models, will also race on four Saturday nights during the season.
Every division that races at the track will have at least one special event targeted for them during the season. The Springtime Modified Spectacular will take place on May 9th while one week later the Pure Stocks have their night with the second annual “Bomber Bash” taking place.
The Firecracker special, with one of the best fireworks displays in the area and always a crowd favorite, will take place on Thursday night, July 2nd and as a part of that event, the K-Runk Memorial Race for Midwest Modifieds will provide a big payoff for those drivers with the Barron County Relay for Life also a part of that gigantic night.
The Dirt Race Central Street Stock Tour, after a successful first appearance at the track in 2025 will return on Saturday night, July 11th. This will serve as a tune up for the nationally famous Street Stock Little Dream race, scheduled for Tuesday night, July 28th with the following night serving as a rain date. This race paid over thirty one thousand dollars to the winner last year and is again expected to be the largest Street Stock race in the country.
The Fastlane Super Stock Series will again return to the track, this year with a Saturday night date of July 25th. After a disappointing rain out in 2025, the Structural Buildings WISSOTA Late Model Challenge Series will be at the track on Saturday night, August 8th with the top prize being raised to four thousand dollars for this year's event.
The Legend Cars and the Outlaw Mini Mods will also make an appearance at the track during the season and fun events like a Mechanics Race and Powder Puff event will also be held. Other events such as an appearance by the Sprint Cars and a Demolition Derby are tentative at this point but hope to be finalized soon.
The goal is to get at least twenty events completed during the racing season and if weather hinders that effort, such as it has for the last two years, a consideration will be made to possibly attempt some Monday night rain dates if the track loses too many shows.
The owners are anxious to get cars on the track in the Spring as Fall work saw much new clay added to the track with the corners being reshaped, promising racing action from the inside line right up to the outside concrete walls.
While there are many more exciting announcements to come regarding the 2026 racing season, track officials are already in the planning stages for the 2027 racing season, which will be historic in that it will mark the seventy fifth anniversary of the track. Rice Lake Speedway LLC has already promised to make that season memorable.
For the speedway website and face book page for more announcements about the upcoming season.
Article Credit: Ed Reichert