2018 MN Asphalt Driver of the Year

Baiden Heskett, 27, from Farmington (MN) has been named by Speed Talk on 1360 radio the 2018 MN Asphalt Driver of the year.  The hometown for Heskett is Alvarado (TX) but has lived in Minnesota the last two years. Heskett had an incredible year of racing in the Great North Legends division at Elko Speedway.  He won his first Championship by a whopping 288 points, won 11 feature events, scored an incredible 163 passing points, (never finishing worse than his starting position) and he had a TOP 5 finish in all 24 feature events he raced in at ELKO.  “Racing in Minnesota has helped me become a better driver,” said Heskett “there is a bunch of talent up here and ELKO is the best track to race at in the nation, it’s racy and you can go side by side.”

In 2018 Heskett won a massive total of 30 feature races at an impressive list of tracks including: Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth (TX), Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids (IA), Jefferson Speedway in Cambridge (WI), Slinger Speedway in Slinger (WI), Elko Speedway in Elko (MN) and Dells Raceway Park in Wisconsin Dells (WI).   

Heskett also excelled at the National level, he was awarded the most prestigious title in all of Legends Car racing.  The 2018 INEX Asphalt Pro division points title becoming the first ever Minnesota based driver to do so.

In fact, racers from this area did well as a whole with Ryan Braseth from Ulen (MN) winning the Young Lions overall title on dirt and Great North Legends owner Tim Brockhouse from Shakopee (MN) winning the overall asphalt Masters title.  Brockhouse, who won the MN Asphalt Driver of the Year award in 2016, is proud of his successful protege “I taught him everything I know, almost.”

Baiden Heskett plans on staying in Minnesota for the 2019 season and is setting even higher goals, he is gunning for both the Asphalt and Dirt Pro Division INEX titles.  “Texas will always be my home, but I think I can call Minnesota my home now too.” said Heskett.

Past winners of the MN Asphalt Driver of the Year:

2017- Conrad Jorgenson

2016- Tim Brockhouse

2015- Jacob Goede

2014- Jacob Goede

2013- Ricky Martin

2012- Jonathan Eilen

2011- Chad Walen

2010- Brent Kane

2009- Adam Royle

2004- Dan Fredrickson

2018 Speed Talk Wrap up

2018 was a banner 10th year for Speed Talk on 1360 radio on KRWC

We had the honor to interview drivers from many different forms of racing including:

ARCA at ELKO! and Iowa Speedway
Gus Dean
Christian Eckes
Riley Herbst
Sheldon Creed
Natalie Decker
Chandler Smith
Zane Smith
Chase Purdy
Harrison Burton
Willie Mullins

IndyCar at Iowa Speedway
Wil Power
Zach Veach

NASCAR Xfinity and Trucks at Iowa Speedway
Ryan Truex
Jusin Haley
Austin Cindric
Kaz Grala
Ty Majeski
Brandon Jones
Riley Herbst
Jesse Little
Johnny Sauter

Elko Speedway weekly racers
Jacob Goede
Dave Reed
Robby Carter
Jeremy Wolff
Jon Lemke
Julie Jorgenson
Sammy Smith
Bryce Blohm
Brody Willett
Norm Grabinger
Taylor Goldman
Nick Oxborough
Bryan Wrolstad
Michael Stoer
Brent Kane
Baiden Heskett
Paul Hamilton
Eric Campbell
Joe Prusak

Bandit Big Rig Series
Mark Noble

Flat Track Motorcycle
Bryan Smith
Bronson Bauman

ERX
Tim Dehann

Road Racing
Matt Peterson

Local Dirt Tracks and WISSOTA 100
Jon Lewerer
Dexton Koch
Eric Martini
Jeremy Nelson
Dustin Holtquist
Dave Mass
Adam Prieve
Shane Howell

MOST LISTENED TO INTERVIEWS of 2018:
Dean's Soundcloud
1- Jon Lewerer interview Listen HERE
2- ELKO Recap 8/11 (Goede, Wrolstad, Sammy Smith) Listen HERE
3- Mark Noble interview Listen HERE

Jason's Soundcloud
1- Michael Haggar win Race Call Listen HERE
2- Julie Jorgenson win Race Call Listen HERE
3- Owin Giles win Race Call Listen HERE
4- Taylor Goldman interview Listen HERE
5- Michael Stoer interview Listen HERE

We were also honored to talk to Carson Gramm from WISSOTA and legendary dirt track announcer Ron Krog multiple times this year, plus Doug Selle, Skip Pollack and Adam Brachle too.  It was fun to see Dean Reller make his TV debut as the pit reporter on the Speed Sport coverage of the WISSOTA 100 (the Kottschade boys were excited) and Jason got his 10 seconds of fame on the MavTV coverage of the ELKO ARCA race.

You can listen to podcasts of Jason's interviews and Race calls HERE

You can listen to Deans interviews and FULL SHOW podcasts HERE

Our final wrap-up show of 2018 here available on a podcast HERE

Our full podcast listings of 2018 are HERE

We also want to thank Jordan Bianchi and Dan Plan for contributing their insights to the show weekly also Shane Carlson for helping out numerous times in 2018.

Please Support our sponsors, they make this show possible.

Performance Driving School at BIR
ELKO Speedway
Cotten's NAPA
Lou Fegers Racing Equipment Delano
Highway 55 Trailer Sales Buffalo
STB Screen Printing and Embroidery

Our MOST CLICKED stories of 2018 were:
1- Local Drivers steal the show at Monster Jam  HERE
2- Willie Mullins small team success in ARCA  HERE
3- Speed Talk returns for 10th year
4- Gus Dean wins ARCA at ELKO HERE
5- Allgaier wins Xfinity at Iowa HERE

6- Creed wins ARCA at Iowa HERE
7- Jorgenson is 2017 Driver of Year HERE
8- Hinchcliffe wins Indycar at Iowa HERE

We had 22,840 unique page views this year and went over 270,000 for the past 10 years.

Thank you for listening... hope to see you again in Spring of 2019 for our 11th year on KRWC
Jason and Dean

Photo credit: Tom Venturini (Jason and Pete)
Photo credit: 7K racing (Dean on TV)
Photo credit  Dean Reller (Becky Monster Jam and Iowa Speedway burnout)