GRAND RAPIDS—As a rookie Late Model driver, Johnny Broking hoped to win one feature race this season.
But the driver of the 45J has accomplished a lot more than that. Broking, of Grand Rapids, headed into championship night at Hibbing Raceway with three feature wins at the track, two other feature wins and the 2024 WISSOTA Late Model Hibbing Raceway season points title wrapped up.
“My goal at the beginning of the season was to just win one race and we won five,” Broking said. “After we won one, I wanted to win two. After two, then three. My goal is getting higher and higher. My goal is to win a couple more before the year is over.”
For years, Broking has been one of the top runners in the WISSOTA Modified division.
However, when the chance presented itself to drive a Late Model, he jumped at the opportunity.
“Actually, last year at the first night at Hibbing, Pat Kapella came up to me asked if I wanted to race for him and I said, ‘Yeah’,” Broking said. “He said ‘Alright, I’ll have a car for you at the end of the year.’ It was the car that Harry Hanson raced at the beginning of the year.”
Broking is driving the Kapella KME Domination Rusty Schlenk-built chassis Late Model.
Broking said he had some education to do on the car as he stepped into Late Model racing after years in Modifieds.
“We went out to Rusty Schlenk’s place in McClure, Ohio in April,” Broking said. “We went through the whole car with him. We spent like 16 hours on it and came back to Cedar Lake and got like eighth, so that wasn’t too bad. He got us in a pretty good direction and I just kept calling him and tweaking it.”
Broking, a truck driver for Broking’s Transport, returned to northern Minnesota and raced primarily at Grand Rapids Speedway, Hibbing Raceway and Gondik Law Speedway in Superior.
Broking said he found driving a Late Model different than driving a Modified.
“They’re much different,” Broking said. “They’re tremendously faster through the corner. You can charge ‘em. When I was a kid, I raced go-karts and it reminded me a lot like that. When you raced go-
karts you had to keep it straight and keep your momentum going, because if you go sideways, you lose your momentum. That’s kind of what it was like racing a go-kart.”
There’s also a different feel in a Late Model compared to a Modified, Broking said.
“There’s a big difference in the handling of a late model compared to a modified,” Broking said. “Jeff
Massingill, who will be my brother-in-law in October, told me when you get into a modified it feels like you strap 300 pounds of lead on top of your car and you feel like a sailboat. This year, with a late model, I understand what he means now. I don’t know what it is. I think it’s just the way the cars are built with the weight transfer. With the late model, you warm up your tires and you don’t it even feel it move. It feels flat like a board. When you drive them, you can feel the difference for sure.”
As the local season winds down, Broking was leading season points at Hibbing Raceway, was a close second at Grand Rapids Speedway and sixth at Gondik Law Speedway.
Hibbing Raceway was a good track for Broking.
“We won three features there and the KME $5,000 special race there, that was cool,” Broking said.
“We’ve been pretty consistent and we’ve have only had one or two nights where we were out of the top five, so we can’t complain about that.”
Competing against a new field of drivers in the Late Model division was also a new experience for Broking.
“It’s always fun racing against different competition,” Broking said. “It was a learning curve when you jump into a late model. We had the modified stuff down pretty good, I felt like. Sometimes, you go out there and don’t do good at all and you’re like, ‘Man, that wasn’t a good night.’ But when you’re racing late model, I could go out and get seventh place and I wasn’t frustrated at the end of the night because it’s a learning curve and you’re racing against the best drivers in our area.”
Broking plans to race both the Late Model and Modified in the Labor Day Shootout and other season-ending invitationals.
Running both cars is a physical challenge, Broking said.
“I was tired after the races were over Saturday,” Broking said of the August 17 races at Hibbing.
My buddy Shane Sabraski ran three cars and I told him, ‘I don’t know how you do it’.”
In what’s already been a successful rookie Late Model year, Broking has solid goals for the invitational season.
“I just want to go out there and run good,” Broking said. “Obviously, I want to win, that’s everybody’s goal. I want to win, that’s why we go to the race track, but if we can make the feature and run in the top
ten, that would be good, at least everybody would know we’re there.”
Broking is sponsored by KME, Broking’s Transport, North Country Directional Drilling,
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