Terry Quam wanting points title at Chateau

LANSING, MN - When it comes to driving a dirt track race car, many drive to win races––Terry Quam, however, drives to irritate!

Quam, who started racing in 1988, is right in the thick of things at Chateau Speedway in Lansing, Minnesota. Now, at the age of 61, he’s competing for the points title in the Hobby Stock class, currently in second place and just 20-points behind front-runner Jason Newkirk of Austin. 

The “Season Championship” will be Friday, Sept. 19 on the Chateau track, which is located just north of Austin off of Hwy. 218. In his class, 47 drivers competed against him, with Quam winning two features, finishing in the top five in 11 of those 12 features and in the top 10 every time. Currently Newkirk, who has won five times and finished top-ten 12 times, has 1,132 points to his 1,112.  No other drivers are in the running, as it goes down to those two on winning the top hardware this weekend!

“I’ve taken second place so many times, I really have nothing to lose,” stated Quam, who is looking forward to the race and hoping to see plenty of support from the Cresco-Turkey Valley area at the track Friday. “I’ll need to have an outstanding race to win this thing and unless something unusual happens, it will be hard to climb those 30 points needed (to win) against a good driver.  The thing is, you just can’t let this wear on you as you just want to race and have fun.  It’s supposed to be fun, and it really is for me.”

Quam stated he’ll need to be in the top three and Newkirk in fifth or worse to land the points trophy. 

“If I can get out front and he can’t get to me, I can get him,” added Quam. “We’ll just have to see.”

Quam was leading the Hobby Stock class in points up to the September 5th race when a car bumped into him and scraped a tire to set him off.

“I was passing Newkirk and in the lead and kind of spun out,” pointed out the driver. “That put me in the back of the group, yet I still finished sixth.”

He stated that his tire just made it through the race as it was losing air, yet he still managed to pass several cars to keep pace with the leaders and stay on the heals of Newkirk and the points race.

“You could tell the tire was going down in pressure, but not all the way down. We never lost ground with the other drivers.”

This past Friday night (Sept. 12), Quam actually finished ahead of Newkirk with a third place finish as Joshua Monson of Clear Lake took the feature. Newkirk was sixth place, allowing for the close points standings. Quam also won his heat and beat Newkirk in that #3 race, allowing for a better pole position in the final. 

 

Old School Driver

The Points Race is interesting and definitely something Quam would like to win, however, the most intriguing thing about this season is not the driver or the points, but the car he drives!

“I started driving in 1988 and stopped in 2007, and didn’t start back up until about two-and-a-half years ago,” said Quam, who works at Quam’s Trucking in Waterloo running a rock pulverizer. “The reason I started was I got a good deal on this car I’m driving.  It’s a brand new chassis that was sitting around for over 20-plus years. I thought I would try this old car out for old-times-sake and see if I still got it. I just wanted to show that old school still works.”