BEAVER DAM, Wis. -- Bill Warren has been a part of two events this season that I have never seen from him before this year. Oddly enough, both took place at Wilmot Speedway. The first was a thrilling one – his first ever IRA win on May 20th; the second, however, was not an enjoyable thing to watch, that being his nasty flip on July 8th.

Warren’s win was undoubtedly a popular one among fans and competitors alike as the win was a long time coming for the auto technician/engine assembler from Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. I hesitate to use the term “mild-mannered” to describe him since it has become such a superhero cliché, but I think maybe it fits here better than almost anywhere.

Warren, who definitely doesn’t look his age of 42, walks the pits each week as the mild-mannered boy-next-door type who is quiet yet friendly with everyone and can be sometimes overlooked because of it - that is until he straps into his race car and the aggressiveness inside comes out. It’s a race car instead of a cape here, but for the sake of the superhero analogy, it works.

Warren competes with the IRA, which touts itself as a blue-collar series filled with working class weekend racers. Like many of his competitors, Warren may be a weekend racer, but getting that weekend seat time means an average of four hours a night during the week spent in the race shop building and maintaining his equipment. With a crew that consists only of himself, his wife Heidi, and Richard Buege, Warren is definitely a working racer.

During the week between the ill-fated Wilmot event and this past weekend’s races at Powercom Park in Beaver Dam, those weeknight hours were spent more in building a new car than maintaining what remained of the one that rolled down the backstretch at Wilmot. With the Wilmot car basically destroyed in a crash not of his making, Warren was forced to remove the seat and the motor from that car and bolt them into the car that would take him to a 7th place finish at Powercom on an unbelievably demanding track.

Warren has been racing full-time with the IRA since 2001, and during that time, I could not remember ever having seen him in a rollover crash until Wilmot. Several of us in the pit stands that night tried to recall ever having seen it happen. None of us could think of a single occurrence.

That might not have been so surprising were Warren a slow, backmarker type of racer. He is, however, anything but that. Countless times in the past couple of years, Warren’s name was listed as hard charger for the IRA’s A-Main events. If he qualified less well than he would have liked and was relegated to starting near the back in the A-Main, he merely picked off car after car until the terms “top 10 finisher” and “hard charger” fit his description for the night.

This season, however, Warren has had to give up his hard charger title on most nights as he has stepped up his qualifying performance, giving himself better A-Main starting positions and a shorter distance to the front. With his racing program seemingly revitalized this season, Warren is on pace to meet his goals for the season – those being a top five position in the points standings at season’s end and capturing an A-Main victory. With a checkmark next to the victory goal and with more wins hopefully yet to come as he charges through his season, Warren stands an excellent chance of checking off that top five goal as well.

Race fans get ready for the world's loudest, fastest, meanest machines on dirt this Friday, July 21 as the winged warriors of the Bumper-To-Bumper IRA Outlaw Sprint Series invade Britt, Iowa, for one night only at the Pritchard Family Auto Stores Hancock County Speedway! Witness the awesome power of the nation's top Outlaw Sprint Cars as they shatter track records with their live 100-mph fire-breathing machines during the Hancock County Fair!

Also this, plus door-to-door action in three classes of stock cars and a candy toss for the kids!

Admission is just $15 for adults and only $12 for juniors and seniors. Kids under 12 get in for FREE. Gates open at 4 p.m. and the green flag flies at 7:30 this Friday for the unbelievable Bumper-To-Bumper IRA Outlaw Sprint Series at the Pritchard Family Auto Stores Hancock County Speedway in Britt, Iowa.

Be there or be nowhere!