---

Interview with 2025 SportMod Champion Cole Wayman

By Greg Soukup
A LOT of years ago, I wrote something up for a website titled “Jonesin’ in the snow and cold”. I bet you are having the same thoughts about now; ‘HOW LONG UNTIL RACING?’ It was about this time of year and we had just gotten nearly a foot of snow and it was below zero outside. As I write this today, the snow from last week is almost melted and it’s 55 degrees. Despite the differences in the 2 days, the feeling is the same as mine about now; “WHEN DOES RACING SEASON START AGAIN AT EAGLE RACEWAY?????’.
As of today, it’s been 5 months and 19 days since racing was held at America’s Home Track. WAAAAYYYY too long. And, it’s 6 weeks and 4 days until cars take to the racing surface at the first Open House Practice. Also, far too long in the future.
Then, the following Friday, competition starts in earnest with night 1 of the 2026 Icebreaker Challenge followed by night 2 on Saturday.
To start putting our minds in the racing groove, I’m speaking with last year’s point champions, starting with the Avid Realty IMCA Northern Sportmod Champion, Cole Wayman who made it two in a row after taking the crown in 2024 also.
Cole came by his racing bug the usual way; he inherited it from his Father Dan, who raced modifieds in the early 2000’s before moving up to a 360 sprint car in 2009. “Then he flipped and broke his foot, ending his racing career and then I started mine,” Cole says.
Cole first raced at Eagle on Mini E Raceway in go-karts before moving up to the big track at 14 years old in 2017. “I’ve been going there weekly ever since except for 1 year.”
I asked his opinion of his 2025 season, to which he replied “It was a really good season; we were super consistent, getting 5 wins at Eagle and ran top 4 in the feature all but two nights. Consistency helped us out a lot in getting the championship. Overall, it was a great year.”
I inquired about his plans for 2026 and he stated “Pretty much the same thing. I’m going to run the sportmod and sprint car again. I think I’m going to do some more stock car racing with Dan Jackson. We’ve got a lot of racing planned, racing two nights a week at least, running both classes at Eagle. So, it’s going to be a busy summer!”
My next question was something that I kid Cole about; what is it going to take for him to snag the IMCA Racesaver Sprint title away from Jason Danley? He said “I just need to be more consistent. The heat races in the sprints are so tough, especially when you have to start seventh or eighth! There’s just not a whole lot of passing in those few laps. You try to move up, but it’s not easy. I’ve found myself being buried so deep in the feature so often, and the whole sprint car class is so tough. It’s hard to come from the back of the ‘A’ and attempt to make your way to the front, especially if there’s not a whole lot of cautions. I think that if we’re consistent and cut down on the DNF’s. I try to set myself to have only one DNF per season and if we can have none I think we’ll be set up pretty good.”
He finished our interview by saying “I want to thank all of the fans that support me all year. Big thanks to all of my sponsors and friends that allow me to do this racing stuff every year.”

---

Back to News