We have been racing stock cars for approximately 30 years as a team. I met Mike in 1985 when I married my wife Laurie and moved to Prairie du Chien, Wi. A friend introduced me to a couple of guys on the ridge that were into racing. At the time Rich Picha and Mike Ehde were known as Hillside Racing, racing at West Union, Independence and Dubuque Iowa. We raced dirt for a few more years when Mike and I decided to try our hand at asphalt racing. La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway was only approximately an hour away and we had went to watch racing there and thought it looked like fun. Who knew what that would lead too.
So we bought an old Chevelle, put a cage in and off we went. What a learning curve!
We did pretty good in our first year with a lot of help from a lot of people. Dan Naverstad of DCA racing and Tom Thurk from Tomcat Racing Engines were instrumental to the start of our racing careers. I will personally be indebted to these guys for what I know today!!
We did that for a few years and then decided to buy a Late Model and try our hand at that. Mike won Rookie of the year in 1992 in the Late Model Division. Then as the years went on we started to travel a around a little. This led us to Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids Iowa. Made a lot of good friends at Hawkeye Downs. I think we finished 2nd in points the last two years out of the 4 years we ran there.
We then moved on the The Dells Raceway Park in Wisconsin Dells, Wi. Still traveling and we also tried ASA for a little bit until it got so blown out a proportion, we ended up just running the Dells for the rest of the year.
We ended up winning the Championship at the Dells in 2008! We also started racing in a limited late model series called the BIG 8 Series. We ran in this traveling series for about 5 years. Took last year off from this series, but plans are to run the Big 8 again this year.
That pretty much is the high level view of Ehde Racing. 2022 Looks to be an eventful one. We hope you can come out and see us this year. Over the years we have gained a lot of dedicated fans and great people. Looking forward to 2022!
