Driver follows Kulwicki’s path
Mondeik, 21, keeps an ambitious schedule
SLINGER – To look at Justin Mondeik’s racing schedule, you’d think maybe he was born more than a generation too late.
Dick Trickle, who was from Mondeik’s part of the state, made the rounds like this in the 1970s and ’80s. So did Alan Kulwicki and Jim Sauter and Joe Shear, and later Rich Bickle and a few others.
That doesn’t happen much these days. But for Mondeik, a 21-year-old college student from the unincorporated burg of Gleason – between Wausau
and Rhinelander – this current eightday odyssey makes perfect sense.
Between this past Saturday and next, he will have spent seven days and nights at the track, at two local speedways where he competes weekly, on two regional touring series and in two special events.
“If you didn’t have a full-time job, this could be your full-time job,” Mondeik said Monday at Slinger Speedway during a test day for Tuesday’s Slinger Nationals.
Oh yeah, there’s that. Mondeik’s fulltime job. He is fortunate his employer and primary sponsor are one and the same – AGRA Industries in Merrill – which provides understanding other jobs might not. He’s on vacation this week.
“Forty-some races throughout the year, we don’t have one off week,” said Mondeik, who will be a senior in mechanical engineering at Michigan Tech. “We have at least one race a week from the beginning of May to the end of October.
“I’ve definitely got to go back to school right after Labor Day, but the local tracks I run for points, their points nights are done, and then the specials in September and October, those are all Saturday and Sunday shows.
“Definitely got to finish this out right.”
Mondeik operates out of a modest trailer, and his white-and-orange car wears the scars of many a short-track battle. But he’s not out to win “best of show;” his goal is to continue to progress in racing and see where it might lead.
A former snowmobile and kart racer, Mondeik moved onto asphalt ovals at 16, and won the title at State Park Speedway in Wausau in his first year in limited late models. Now he races in the superlate model division at State Park and at Golden Sands Speedway in Plover, as well as with the TUNDRA Super Late series and ARCA Midwest Tour.
Shut out in 38 races last season, Mondeik has won twice this year at State Park and has finished among the top five in more than half of his races.
“We’re definitely going out and running with different competition all over the Midwest, different series, big fields of cars, and we’ve been running really good,” Mondeik said.
For the second consecutive year, Mondeik is a finalist in the Kulwicki Driver Development Program, one of seven local- and regional-level drivers from across the country competing for a career advancement stipend of more than $54,000.
In addition to their on-track performance, the finalists are judged on their ability to help uphold and spread the legacy of Kulwicki, the late 1992 NASCAR champion from Greenfield. Kulwicki received his engineering degree from UW-Milwaukee, was successful on the regional short-track scene and then made his way in NASCAR with his smarts and dedication.
Among his other projects, Mondeik has raised money to send seven veterans on Honor Flights to the memorials to their respective wars in Washington, all in Kulwicki’s name.
While Kulwicki’s story has been an inspiration to Mondeik, so has that of Ty Majeski, the first winner of the Kulwicki scholarship in 2015. Majeski, of Seymour, is using his engineering education while working for Roush-Fenway Racing as well as driving part time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
“Ever since he won the Kulwicki Cup, it’s really skyrocketed his racing career,” Mondeik said. “That’s what the whole Kulwicki program is about is to get you to that next step in racing.
“Hopefully we’ll continue a similar path, and it works out good for us.”
Even if the path runs from Wausau to Slinger to Marshfield to Wausau to Plover to Morris, Ill., in the course of barely a week.