His Ride A Love Of Racing vBy Rob Nielsen Nebraska native Gale Vogt’s called Yankton home for around two years now. But well before that, Vogt was making the rounds on dirt tracks throughout the upper Midwest. Recently, the long-time driver sat down with His Voice to discuss his success on the track, his love of racing and the community that makes racing possible. Late Model Racing has always been a family thing for Vogt. “My dad raced for years over in Stuart, Nebraska and Winner, South Dakota,” Vogt said. “When I got into Junior High, I raced go-karts for a couple of years.” In high school, he raced late-model part-time during high school at tracks in Lake Andes and Stuart before taking time off for engineering school. After school, Vogt raced street-stock for a few years before getting back into late-model racing. He said that he even remembers when he picked up his first latemodel car. “I picked up my first late-model on the day that Dale Earnhardt died,” he said. After racing throughout the state of Nebraska, Vogt started working in Yankton — where he moved two years ago — and started racing regularly at Wagner. Over the past five seasons at Wagner, Vogt has accumulated three championships and two runner-up finishes. Vogt said he hasn’t seen too many differences between racing in Nebraska and racing in South Dakota, except for regulations. “The competition is about the same,” he said. “It’s just different rule packages are about the only difference.” He said this took a little getting used to. “Down in Nebraska, most of the late-model racing had been with limited engines,” he said. “They allow a little more up here because we 10vHISVOICEvJULY/AUGUST 2018 try to combine with the WISSOTA sanctioned series. That took a bit of getting used to.” In addition to the upper Midwest, Vogt said he’s raced as far away as Lakeside Speedway in Kansas. #1 For the last year and a half, Vogt has been running with a latemodel Lazer Chassis emblazoned with a number one that he bought used. “We really got it dialed in toward the end of last year and started out fairly strong this year,” he said. However, the new car hasn’t been totally without issue. “We’ve had some fuel issues a couple of nights,” he said. “Also a lot of rain outs this year. … I had a lot of work projects going over the winter and we had a lot more to do to the car. We got started a little bit later than I like because of the weather and some other things..” While the chassis was bought used, Vogt said he put in his own engine and drivetrain. He added that there’s a lot of work to keep the car running in top condition. “There’s really a lot of adjustment to these cars in the late-model class,” he said. “It has a four-bar suspension. There’s lots of various settings that you can set that at. It has a J-bar … and you have a lot of adjustment with that. Shocks, springs and there’s really a lot that I can adjust and a lot of things you can do to get yourself in trouble too. I enjoy the challenge of it.” This year Vogt is racing in Wagner as well as part of the Tri-State Series which runs on regional tracks in South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska. Vogt said he has a small but dedicated crew that works with him during races. “I work on it during the week,” he said. “At the track, there’s usually two to three guys that will help me out.” He added that other racers tend to help each other out more often than not. “There’s a crew that helps my cousin race a B-mod there,” he said. “If