3/17/2025
Badger Midget Auto Racing Association
We're 40 Days Out From the 2025 BMARA Season Opener!
In honor of being just 40 days away from the 2025 AFS Badger Midget Series opener at Beaver Dam Raceway, we get some comments from Dave Collins Jr!
Car #: 40 Jr
Owner: Big Hat Racing
Crew: Mom & Dad, and whenever they can help, my uncle Ryan and grandad Pops.
Sponsors: Doyle's Dogs of Lake Mills, Kenzie Dunn
Favorite Track: I love racing at Angell Park and Sycamore Speedway.
Do you have any racing superstitions and/or race day routines?
Just about every race day includes a trip to the hot dog stand to fuel up. There's usually a little too much chaos otherwise to maintain much else for a "routine."
Is there any significance to your car number?
The first super modified Pops owned himself got the number "40 jr" as the "junior" of the original 1940 Chevy coupe jalopy he'd run. The letters got dropped later, but the number's stuck around since then as the "family number." My dad used it, my uncle Mike used a variation for his motorcycle, Ryan's raced some 40's, and I've been proud to keep it going, even adding the Jr back to it in the midget.
What are your highlights from 2024?
Picked up a couple hard chargers and advanced the most positions in A features over the course of the year. 100% attendance might not sound that major to everyone, but it was the first time achieving that in a midget, and even included a blown engine, so that was a big accomplishment for our camp.
What are your plans for 2025?
Running the full Badger schedule again. Keep looking to improve every night out and build a little further!
Photo by: Roy Ophime
Article by: Bill Blumer Jr. and Dave Collins Jr.
Submitted By: William Blumer