Montpelier Speedway

Notes: Weary Burdette limping to tour finish line

October 25, 2026, 9:44 am

By Bryan Ault

DirtonDirt contributing writer

MONTPELIER, Ind. (Oct. 24) — Colten Burdette has the Valvoline American Late Model Iron-Man Series championship nearly buttoned up for the second year in a row with two races remaining on the schedule, but the Parkersburg, W.Va., driver is experiencing much different feelings than he did when he captured the crown last season.

Burdette and his Steven Curtis-owned team is exhausted, much like their beaten and battered Rocket XR1 that has served him well. | RaceWire

“The two years I did a regional tour, we won, you know, both the years, so that’s pretty cool to put on my resume to hang on a wall,” Burdette said Saturday at Montpelier Motor Speedway, where he finished sixth in the tour’s 30-lap Monster Mash feature. “But we put this car through the wringer. Matter of fact, this is the only car we’ve had since I drove for Steve. We didn’t go through this car in the winter like we should have. I think all we did is put a body on it. But to keep these cars up front, they need stripped to the bare frame and just rebuilt. And this car never got it, and we talked about doing it in the middle of the season, but, you know, we’re traveling, we’re working, we just never had the downtime to do it.”

Much like Santiago in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” Burdette and his crew have caught a big fish but have struggled to find much joy as they reel it in. Part of this is due to Burdette’s in-season job change: he was with the Parkersburg Fire Department and now works at the Pleasants Power Station in Willow Island, W.Va., giving him less flexibility than what he had last season.

Burdette is eager to finish off his season this weekend at Portsmouth (Ohio) Raceway Park but has nothing on his schedule beyond the series finale.

“We love Portsmouth, by the way, so we’re excited to go to Portsmouth,” Burdette said of the track hosting a Halloween weekend doubleheader topped by a $50,000-to-win finale. “But we are ready to get (the season) in. We’re not going to the Dome this year, we’re not going any of our other races. We didn’t try to go to the World 100. We didn’t go to the (Dirt Track World Championship), six miles from the house, at an awesome facility that Mike Hurley has done, you know, a phenomenal job at.

“But that just tells you, I mean, we are burned out and ready for this thing to end,” he added. “My truck broke down and we went to Eldora for our (Iron-Man) race (the Baltes Classic), and I wasn’t staying for the World and our truck broke down on the other side of Columbus. I had to have it towed and just a transmission electronic module went out of it. Thirteen thousand dollars … three weeks later, we had it back on the road.

“That actually, that one deal, sums up this whole year for it. Like I said, we’re ready to go fishing.”

Burdette isn’t ruling out running a tour again in 2027. Rising costs of diesel fuel, though, coupled with his challenging new work schedule, have him thinking about racing closer to home next season.

And he certainly has the tracks around his house to do it.

“You know, we have this championship pretty well wrapped up,” Burdette said. “We could have probably not come tonight, but we lose championship money if we do so. You know, West Virginia Motor is literally, I think, six miles from my house. We have a steel-block that we unloaded last week, and it is really, really good. They’re paying $5,000-to-win steel blocks, $2,500-to-win supers. We could have ran both classes, but instead, you know, we drove just under five hours for $5,000-to-win (at Montpelier).”

Bauer pays for mistake

Pacing the field for the first half of Saturday’s Valvoline American Late Model Iron-Man Series-sanctioned Monster Mash at Montpelier Motor Speedway, Cody Bauer of Farwell, Mich., appeared to have the race in hand over veteran Rusty Schlenk, the Jackson, Ohio, native who has dominated races at the quarter-mile oval in the past.

But a slip by Bauer off turn two on lap 17 was all it took for Schlenk to pounce. Schlenk pulled even with Bauer down the backstretch, took the lead and never looked back en route to capturing the $5,000 first-place prize.

A runner-up finish had to satisfy Bauer, who, two circuits before his bobble, felt his car getting tight while running the preferred line. He tagged the wall off turn four, which allowed Schlenk to get even closer.

“I could see Rusty getting on the inside of me there in (turns) one and two, because I feel like one and two is pretty even, top to bottom,” Bauer said. “I'd see him show me the nose there, probably the previous 10 laps before he got by me. and I made a mistake getting into one, shoved the nose a little bit, and it was over. Once he cleared me from there, I’m like, ‘Man, I know it’s going to be tough to get back by him.’”

Bauer started from the front row and dominated the early circuits, staying up against the curb on the high side of the track in northeastern Indiana. Even in lapped traffic he kept his right-rear tire against the berm, the line that drivers such as Schlenk and even Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., have run on in DIRTCar Summernationals events at Montpelier in the past.

But the mistakes off turns four and two cost him the race, and gave Schlenk his 44th Iron-Man Series victory and his third win at Montpelier in 2026. He beat Bauer to the line by 2.596 seconds.

“I felt like, if I could have hit my marks and not made the mistake … I made that one mistake there and it shoved the car and it was enough for him to roll the bottom and clear me. Then it was over from there,” Bauer said. “But, yeah, I feel like if I wouldn’t have made that mistake and, you know, kept it rolling, I think I probably could have held them off.

“But that’s part of it. I’m not going to complain about second him here. He’s got a lot of laps around this place.”

Monsters out at Montpelier

Some tracks decide to get festive during holiday weekends, but few go to the lengths Montpelier Motor Speedway does for their annual Monster Mash event.

With one week to go before Halloween, race fans in all sorts of costumes filled the pit area Saturday with drivers handing out candy for trick-or-treat. Fans were dressed as fairies, Yoshi and even the late Dolly Parton for a costume contest. The track got into the fun, too, with several employees wearing outfits on Saturday afternoon. A giant orangutan rolled around the pits on a four-wheeler, while two scary-looking figures stood in victory lane. Two workers in the pit shack, who were styled up as nuns last season, opted to dress up as indians for 2026 as they greeted drivers and fans.

Thirty-eight-year-old Dawn Sibley and her two kids, 15-year-old son Liam and 4-year-old daughter Emma, came down from Fort Wayne, Ind., for the big race.

“We come out here to watch racing quite a bit,” Dawn said. “We probably come three or four times a year at least. (Emma) loves coming to the races. This is our first time for the Monster Mash and it’s really fun.”

Track promoter Ryan Sutter, who turned laps in the modified division at Eldora Speedway’s inaugural Clash on the Wabash weekend two weeks ago, was thrilled to see the number of fans who showed up for the 19th annual event. He introduced a costume contest for fans, had a live band after Friday night’s unsanctioned preliminary event and created a camping area for fans who wanted to stay for the whole weekend.

Unseasonably warm temperatures brought the fans out in droves for the weekend. With an hour to go before hot laps, most of the parking lot was full.

“When we took over, we just made it two days for Late Models and modifieds to try to make a weekend getaway of it and do the trick-or-treating in the pits they’ve been doing, but we kind of just upped the ante with some other stuff,” Sutter said. “Yeah, a hell of a turnout. As far as spectators and participating in trick-or-treat, I’d say that’s extreme. That’s easily a record there.”