When trying to handicap a big Wisconsin Super Late Model race, Justin Mondeik is pretty far down the list.
The 29-year-old from Gleason is prolific, and he’s had good success on the smaller tracks in the central part of the state. But if Ty Majeski, Luke Fenhaus, Gabe Sommers and Casey Johnson are in the field for, say, a 100-lapper, that’s where the money will be.
Maybe that’s changing.
Anyone who put a few bucks on Mondeik in the Gandrud 250, Wisconsin’s longest short track event, at Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna, a fast, rough and challenging half-mile, made out just as well as he did Tuesday night.
“I woke up this morning and told my wife (Kayla), we’re going to go win this thing today,” Mondeik said. “She says, ‘I know … we have a good shot.’ But you’ve got to be realistic, too, right?
“But it worked out. We had a good starting position (fourth after a 12-car invert), we had good long-run pace and the cautions came at the right time.”
Mondeik beat Ty Fredrickson on a restart with 10 laps to go and then pulled away to win by a second to cash a $15,000 paycheck from the ASA Midwest Tour and race promoter Gregg McKarns.
The victory was his fourth on the Midwest Tour following two at defunct State Park Speedway in Wausau and another at Elko Speedway in Minnesota.
“Definitely the biggest,” said Mondeik, who did his TrackTV interview while sitting on the track next to the oversized check leaning against his car. Third-generation racer Penn Sauter, son of NASCAR truck champion Johnny Sauter, finished third just five days after scoring his first Super Late Model win while using WIR’s weekly program, as a tuneup. Riley Stenjem finished fourth and Sommers, a two-time Midwest Tour champion, was fifth.
Fredrickson, who chose the outside for the restart, was upset with Mondeik both for contact and for what he believed was a jumped final restart after a ragged first attempt was waved off. The two had contact, but it did not appear egregious given what was at stake.
“We had those two restarts and I was able to get a good launch off [Turn] 4 and just be behind him by a half a car length at the start and had a really good 1 and 2 and was able to clear him,” Mondeik said. “Pretty wild race. Definitely needed those late restarts.”
Just 11 of the 21 starters were running at the checkered flag, 10 on the lead lap. Among those out early were Fenhaus, the 2025 winner, who had a trailing arm mount break, Majeski, a four-time winner whose car suffered right front suspension failure, and Austin Nason, winner of the season opener at Madison International Speedway, who had a broken axle. Paul Shafer Jr., the 2021 winner, crashed with 19 laps to go, setting up the final restart after an extended cleanup of the rigid foam that protects the fourth-turn wall.
The race was supposed to have more of a national flavor with NASCAR Cup driver Carson Hocevar and Spire Motorsports development driver Tristan McKee, but they scratched as McKee prepared for his truck debut. Andrew Morrissey, another frequent frontrunner in big specials, never got onto the track due to problems with the car he had just completed for a customer and was scheduled to drive in the 250.
“That doesn’t bother me,” Mondeik said. “Other people have won because Ty and Luke have wrecked, or they’ve won because other people wrecked. That’s just racing, and you’ve got to be there at the end. That’s why it’s 250 laps.”
