---

Interview with 2025 Stock Car Champion Chad Andersen

Story Greg Soukup
This time I spoke with Chad Andersen who came out on top of the 2025 IMCA Stock Car points race at Eagle Raceway. This was Chad’s second points championship to go along with a previous one at US-36 Speedway.
Chad’s racing career started in 2002 at the age of 19 in the Grand National Late Model class. "That class was like a stock car and we raced against 40 cars most nights. Believe me, just to make the A Feature was a big accomplishment. They started changing the rules; changing motor rules, giving them more horsepower, making them go faster, giving them aluminum heads. I couldn’t afford to keep up with the rules changing every year," Chad says.
He then moved to the Modified class in 2007. “I didn’t have any money, so I got my brother’s old GRT car. He had started a year or 2 before I did. Eventually, I found a Kosiski K Mod. I was working for Jon Schwartz at the time, and I kind of got onto some of the stuff that he was doing. He taught me what to look for, what to change and things like that. That opened up a whole new world for me in the modified. I got my first win in 2009 and I’ve been racing ever since.”
I asked about moving up to the Stock Car class last year, to which he replied “Yeah. The year before Nate Thompson had me race his car because he wasn’t running in it. He told me to go get my stock car license and that I could run it, which I did once. Marty Steinbach was running for points at that time and blew his motor in the heat race. Nate told me that Marty was probably going to ask if he could run Nate’s car and I told him “Sure! He’s running for points and I’m just doing it for fun.’ The next night I was leading the A Feature until Kye Vanover passed me late in the race. That got me really hooked on running a stock car, It’s a whole different deal than a modified. Everything is slower reacting. Then I saw that Jake Kubik was selling his car, turn-key and ready to go. I figured that if I was going to do it I wanted to get a car that I could just jump into and ready to race. I knew it was a good car from all of the modifieds that the builder had done. So, I’ve been running both classes ever since. It’s a tough deal, running 2 cars and with just a couple of guys that help me during the week. Then there’s my kids and their baseball events or whatever they’re doing at the time. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s another full-time job running 2 classes.”
I inquired about his feelings overall about this past season. He said “I felt like we started off pretty bad in the modified. I think we wrecked the first night out, knocking the rear end out of the car and bent an axle tube, but we won that night in the stock car, so it all balanced out. Then the next week or 2 weeks later we won in the modified because our points average was so low we started out front. We had 2 DNF’s in the modified and that put us way behind the points leader at that time. We were fourth or fifth and running good though, but those DNF’s pretty much knocked us out of having a chance at the end of the season. Especially with Harker having no DNF’s and winning every race towards the end of the season. You have to have good luck because if you don’t have good luck at Eagle you’re not going to win championships. Like the stock car championship; there was only one scenario that could have played out for us. I had to stay in front of Mason Richards or finish just 1 spot behind him. When we blew up that motor on the last night I thought that was it, because he had to be the next car out. However, things happen that’s what happened and he was the next car out! We ended up tying and I had the tie breaker advantage. All in all, I think we had good seasons in both car, getting 2 wins in the modified and 3 in the stock car.”
We then talked about the upcoming season. He stated “I think that the stock car class will be pretty fun this year with so many quality drivers and more coming in. There will be more guys in the modified class which is great because I feel like that class is dwindling all around because of the rule changes and everything just costs so much anymore. Just keeping up with everything, changes and parts. And with the economy the price of everything is going up. Racing is a hobby; we don’t make money at it. Ever since I started, I figure that if I can get back what I’m putting in and break even I call it a win. You’re never going to make money at it but if you stay away from the red numbers and close to zero that’s the way to do it. If you’re a billionaire it’s a good way to become a millionaire. I think that we’re going to start off the season running both cars weekly at Eagle. We’ll see how things play out because my sons have a lot of out-of-state tournaments for Select Baseball. If everything starts off good we’ll continue to try and make every Saturday; that’s my goal. If we start off bad or get into a couple of wrecks and our points chances are pretty much shot and we’re pretty much out of it which happened last year with the modified we’ll see. A points championship or track championship is just something to hang on the wall.”
Is anyone else ready for some racing at the World’s Fastest 1/3 Mile. The ‘Voice of the Outlaws’ John Gibson rates Eagle Raceway his second favorite dirt track in the world. We all know better than that because One Badass Racetrack isn’t just a name, it’s the truth!!
See you all there in just under 4 weeks.

---

Back to News