Dells Raceway Park

Here is the rewritten encyclopedia entry:

Dells Raceway Park, which first opened as the Dells Motor Speedway in 1958, is a 1/3-mile asphalt oval for stock car racing. It sits on 38 acres in the town of Lyndon, Juneau County, just north of Wisconsin Dells off U.S. Route 12/Wisconsin Highway 16. Over the years, the track has hosted series such as the ARTGO Challenge Series, the NASCAR AutoZone Elite Division Midwest Series, the ARCA Midwest Tour, the Mid-American Stock Car Series, the Wisconsin Challenge Series, the Must See Racing.com Xtreme Sprint Car Series, the Alive for Five Series, the TUNDRA Super Late Models, and the Central Wisconsin Racing Association.

In 2025, it joined the NASCAR Local Racing Series Powered by O'Reilly Auto Parts, giving drivers a chance to compete for a NASCAR national championship. The track shut down in the middle of the 2006 season after owner Bryan Severson, who had bought it in 2002 from Luke Herring, was arrested on federal bank fraud charges. Severson had taken loans from First National Bank of Blanchardville president Mark Hardyman in 2002 and 2003, using his towing business and the track as collateral.

To hide the loans from the bank’s board, he wrote worthless checks worth millions. The bank collapsed in 2003. Severson was convicted of 28 felonies and sentenced to nearly 12 years in federal prison in February 2008, and ordered to repay the FDIC roughly $6.4 million, minus about $700,000 recovered from another bank that bought some of his loans. During the 2006 season, the track struggled to pay drivers and closed by mid-July.

A group of three investors, led by Chicago businessman Joe Graziano and including former NASCAR driver and local native Frank Kreyer, bought the track that off-season and reopened it in 2007. Graziano sold it in 2012 to Rockford, Illinois businessman and race car builder Wayne Lensing, who split the property and built a campground south of the track. Jerry Auby purchased the track on March 26, 2021. Original co-owner Howard Johnson liked to call the track "Home of the Biggies."

It earned a reputation as "what a short track should be." Driver Dick Trickle described the racing line: "You drop low in the corners and then drift high on the straights. You try to make the track into the roundest oval possible."

On May 26, 1973, Wisconsin Rapids driver Lyle Nabbefeldt lost control entering turn one during time trials, hit the outside wall, and died instantly. The Lyle Nabbefeldt Memorial began in 1974 as an annual tribute, becoming the track’s marquee event until its last running in the late 1990s. The first race was a 100-lap feature, but the next year it switched to two 55-lap features with an overall champion, reflecting the number 55 Nabbefeldt ran during his career.

The winner received the Nabbefeldt Traveling Trophy, keeping it until the next year’s race. Any driver who won three years in a row would keep the trophy permanently, and a new one would be introduced. Dick Trickle won two years in a row twice, but Rick Wateski is the only driver to win three straight (1991, 1992, 1993). Wayne Lensing revived the Nabbefeldt Memorial for 2015 as part of the CWRA Challenge Series.

That same year, the track added two new marquee Super Late Model events: the Icebreaker 100 in April and the Falloween 150 in late October. In 2020, the Joe Shear Classic, normally at Madison International Speedway, was held at Dells in September due to pandemic restrictions in Dane County. In September 2021, the ARCA Midwest Tour stop at Dells became the Jim Sauter Classic, a 200-lap race honoring the late Necedah, Wisconsin racer. In 2024, the National Short Track Championship, held at Rockford Speedway in Illinois from 1966 until its closure and demolition after 2023, moved to Dells Raceway Park.