ARDEN HILLS, Minn. — Brady Donnohue decided that this spring would be the season to spread his wings and travel to different tracks.
Thirty-four starts at a dozen different speed factories in five states later, he had a track championship at Huset’s Speedway as well as IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car national rookie of the year award to show for his efforts.
“The first time we went to Huset’s it was like ‘Man, this is fun!’ We could get two nights of racing every week between there and I-90 Speedway, plus everywhere else we could go,” said Donnohue, who made regular tows to South Dakota from his home in Arden Hills, north of the Twin Cities.
“We really didn’t start running for rookie of the year until about the last three weeks. There were no goals at the start of the season, We just wanted to take one race at a time and see how it goes,” he explained. “It all just kind of worked out and we’re grateful it happened that way. We had no intention of racing for everything that we accomplished.”
Tenth in national points, Donnohue was the top rookie at Huset’s while also logging starts in Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and his home state.
His three wins came at different tracks, in his 11th start on June 23 at Redwood Speedway, on July 7 at Huset’s and July 18 at Norman County Raceway.
Career win number one at Redwood came from the pole. Donnohue became the 17th different winner in as many IMCA Speedway Motors Weekly Racing shows dating to last season at Huset’s while the Ada checkers came in Red River Sprint Series action.
“I won from seventh at Huset’s and it definitely wasn’t easy. Everybody was there that night which made it more rewarding as well and that was probably the highlight of my season. They shot off a bunch of fireworks as I took the checkered flag,” he said, adding with a laugh “I told myself maybe I should run one more lap on the top so somebody could get a picture of my car and all the fireworks.”
Donnohue inherited his interest in dirt track racing from his father and crew chief Patrick, who had seen a race car on a trailer parked at a gas station when he was 12 years old. He got to talking with the driver and went on to crew and eventually own his own cars.
Brady started in local flat karts and micro sprint classes before moving “full steam ahead” to the winged class. He had not raced previously at any of the 12 tracks he earned IMCA points at this season.
“The competition in the class is pretty good and you get to race against a whole bunch of different people. That’s what I like about it, that and being able to travel. We could go up north and race against Red River Series drivers, and none of them were people we raced against at Huset’s,” said Donnohue, a machinist by profession, “There’s no BS in this class and I’ve enjoyed racing with all the drivers this season.”