GREEN BAY, Wis. (September 21, 2022) – One year after securing his first TUNDRA Super Late Model Series Championship, Riley Stenjem has turned from being the chased to being the chaser. 

This Sunday he’ll be looking to make up some ground and claim his second series title in the Carl Wegner 100 at Dells Raceway Park.  Stenjem sits 22 points behind current point leader Justin Mondeik, with the team of Dalton Zehr and John Beale sitting in Second, just six points behind Mondeik.

The approach to Sunday’s race brings a different feel than last season, according to Stenjem.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that the pressure is off, but it’s definitely a different mindset coming into this race on the hunt versus protecting a point lead like we had to do last year,” Stenjem said.

Stenjem knows that although 22 points isn’t a lot, it can take some luck to overcome.  Having another competitor between himself and the point leader also throws another twist into the plot.

“It’s going to take a near perfect day for us to win the championship this year, and a little bit of help from our competitors to put some cars between us, the 44 [Mondeik] and 119 [Zehr],” Stenjem explained. “We’re definitely excited to be in the position again to race for a championship, although we’d like to be in a better points position it’s still great to be in the hunt.”

Consistency has not been an issue for Stenjem all season long. He has completed every lap and has not finished worse than Seventh this season.  His best finish of the season was Second at Norway, one that he led until late in the race.  Stenjem is hoping they have the magic touch to get to Victory Lane Sunday.

“I don’t necessarily feel like we’re due for a win, we’ve had some good runs and been off some places this year when trying some different setups,” he said. “Hopefully if we get back to the basics setup-wise this weekend we can put ourselves in position to race for the win at the end.”

As a finalist of the Kulwicki Driver Development Program this year, Stenjem has seen some extra spotlight.  Weather delayed some of his plans and pushed other to the sides with postponements and cancellations. He’s looking to have a strong end to the 2022 campaign.

“It would be pretty special if we were able to get back-to-back TUNDRA Championships,” Stenjem said. “It would really put a nice boost to end our season heading into Oktoberfest and Falloween with this only being my second full season in a SLM, trying different ways to find opportunities to get faster and not racing a track more than once all season so far.”

TUNDRA will be joined on Sunday by the UMA 602 Late Models and the INEX Legends. Qualifying begins at 12:30 with racing at 2pm.

Dells Raceway Park is located at N1070 Smith Rd outside of Wisconsin Dells, Wis. For more information visit http://www.dellsracewaypark.com