7/22/2025
Badger Midget Auto Racing Association
"Always Basically a Badger Guy" Hall of Famer Ron Hoettels Passes at 89
The Badger Midget Series learned of the passing of Ron Hoettels just hours before the 2025 Badger Midget Auto Racing Association Hall of Fame Inductions. Hoettels was recalled as a champion engine builder within the club and a racing innovator.
Below is the biography he helped us with for this Hall of Fame Induction program in 2024. When we spoke with him for content he was sharp as a tack and very proud of his accomplishments.
Following the bio, we have shared his obituary as posted by the servicing funeral home.
RON HOETTELS
While the Badger Midget Auto Racing Association, like many clubs, has a number of records they keep, the statistics for the likes of Ron Hoettels can be hard to find. Many will at least recognize the Badger championship engines he built. In the span of 32 years, his SESCO (“Speed Engineering Service Company'') power plants took the Badger crown four times.
As a kid, Hoettels, the son of a mechanic, liked to build things. The Soapbox Derby cars he constructed, won awards twice for “Best Design.” Facets of these creations were eventually outlawed by the Derby board.
Hoettels became interested in midget racing in 1955 when he attended the races at Angell Park Speedway. From there he began to develop an idea for a midget engine, with the advent of the 1955 Chevy V8 small block. Upon some investigation, he found a proper crankshaft was going to be too big a hurdle in any conversion and the idea was tabled.
In the mid-1960’s, Chevrolet came out with a four-cylinder engine and after buying a head gasket from both the V8 and four-cylinder, he learned the bore centers were the same. He went to work from there. In short, he then sawed a V8 in half, lengthwise, and built his first SESCO Chevy. It’s believed he was one of the first to cut the V8 this way.
Hoettels approached Badger with his design. At the meeting he went so far as to have his engine apart, placing pieces on the ground. At around $2,000 this motor would cost a team less than half of the national Offenhauser engines, which were not Badger-legal. Badger’s board denied the design. Rather than give up, he took his creation to USAC which approved it. Howard Linne was the first to buy in.
After a few research and development runs in 1968, the engine won a USAC show in 1969 at Capital Super Speedway in Oregon, Wisconsin in a Linne car, piloted by Mel Kenyon. Here, the car crackled, snapped and popped its way to victory. There was an obvious ignition problem, but Kenyon, who is today’s record holder in all-time USAC Midget wins, saw the potential in the motor and bought the SESCO prototype from Linne.
After some alterations, the SESCO next appeared at the big Labor Day USAC show in DuQuoin, Illinois. Here, Kenyon was two seconds faster than the rest of the field in qualifying and “Won hands down,” according to Hoettels. This was a double feature race and in the second run, Kenyon won again, but this time Lee Kunzman, in Linne’s car, kept it close. “I sold 25 engines that day,” Hoettels noted proudly. By 1972, all but two cars had SESCO power plants for the race.
Despite his success, Hoettels, who was now building midget engines for a living, wanted to be a force in his home state, with his local sanctioning body. “Give me a rule I can live with,” he told the Badger Board of Directors. By 1976 Badger’s rules finally conformed to a package Hoettels could work within. Vance Moore’s car, with Lars Lein behind the wheel finished second in points that season, with a Cosworth SESCO 2x4 under the hood.
In 1977, fellow Hall of Fame member, John Heisdorf was the first owner to take the Badger crown, running a SESCO Chevy, in a car piloted by Dave Ray.
In 1983 Hoettels went in a different direction with his Suzuki V8 in a car piloted by Greg Nelson. Taking the first three races at Angell Park and scoring four wins in all, they went on to earn SESCO its second title.
Ten years later, despite skipping a point-paying pavement race, Hall of Famer Dan Boorse won the championship in a SESCO V4.
The last title for Hoettels and his SESCO came in 2003, in a car owned by Ralph Wilke and Joe Vukelich. This was a Mopar SESCO driven by Davey Ray, the son of the aforementioned Dave Ray and grandson to Heisdorf.
Reflecting on his thirty-plus years with Badger, Hoettels declares, “I did well in USAC but I was always basically a Badger guy.”
OBITUARY FOR RON HOETTELS FROM CAIN FUNERAL HOME
Ronald Walter Hoettels
Serving Location:
CRAIN FUNERAL HOME – CAPE GIRARDEAU
829 North West End Boulevard, Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Ronald Walter Hoettels, age 89, of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, formerly of Colgate, Wisconsin, passed away on Wednesday, July 9, 2025 at The Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau.
He was born on July 27, 1935 to Walter and Elsie (Crome) Hoettels in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Ron founded Speed Engineering Service Co. (SESCO), which designed and built racing engines for the midget racecar class. Ron was inducted into both the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame and the Badger Midget Auto Racing Association Hall of Fame. His many successful midget racing engines are on permanent display at the Museum of American Speed in Lincoln, Nebraska. Ron also holds the land speed record with a 122 engine at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
Survivors include his second wife of 11 years, Vivian (Hill) Butenhoff; two daughters, Joan (Tom) Wenig and Janice (Bruce Richardson) Hoettels; one granddaughter, Nicole (Kendall) Wenig-Wentzel; one grandson, Brett Wenig; and one great-grandson, Easton Wentzel.
He was preceded in death by his parents and his first wife of 48 years, Lorraine E. Hoettels.
Memorial service and entombment will take place at a later date at St. Mary's Cemetery and Mausoleum in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.
Crain Funeral Home and Cremation Service in Cape Girardeau, Missouri is in charge of arrangements.
Article by Bill Blumer Jr.
Submitted By: William Blumer