Mursu fulfills childhood dream of racing cars

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

It’s not everyday that someone gets to fulfill their lifelong dream, especially if that dream has been with them since childhood. One local community member, however, was able to pull it off this summer and is chasing the next set of goals that go with it.  ¶  Kurt Mursu, rural New York Mills, has had his sights set on being a race car driver since he was a young child.  ¶  “It all started when I was younger,” said Mursu. “My dad actually took us to the races down in Alexandria at Viking Speedway and that’s where my dream started. I was probably eight-nine-ten years old, somewhere around there. I just figured one day, that would be me racing around the track.”  ¶  With life circumstances changing and a family to take care of, Mursu didn’t think that the dream was going to be financially feasible. That is, until this past spring when he started really considering the idea of making his goal a reality.

“It’s always been in the back of my head, always been a goal of mine, but with life circumstances, it never worked out,” Mursu said. “I knew it was an expensive hobby, so I kinda always thought it was financially out of reach for me. I had been telling people last spring, some day that’s what I’m going to do and I was super serious about those conversations. More serious than I had ever been in my life.”

It was Mursu’s children—Macy, Jamie and Dallas—that really sealed the deal for him. He decided it was time to finally pursue his dream of being a race car driver.

“My kids, they really started enjoying racing and just being more involved with that, watching on TV or taking them to races around the area at different tracks and I could see their enthusiasm and excitement about racing,” he said. “I saw myself as a kid inside of them and how I felt back then, so that really pushed me over the edge to really pull some strings and to make this happen.

“The last few years, I’ve went though some life events and really dug deep on who I am, who I want to be and what I want in my life,” he continued. “So I had this ‘take life by the horns’ type scenario and I had to pull some strings financially, but I made it happen, so I was following though with my goal, with my dream.”

To be a race car driver, the first thing a person needs is a race car, and Mursu quickly found one in the region that was up for sale.

“I ended up finding a car on Facebook Marketplace and I bought it from a guy from Park Rapids,” said Mursu. “It really felt like everything was just kind of falling into place. I knew I needed some help as far as guys helping me out, getting things right and just gaining more knowledge on racing in general. I thought I knew a lot about racing before I bought the car, but it turns out, within that first month of owning the car, I probably gained more knowledge ten times over what I thought I knew, so it was pretty crazy.”

Mursu is employed at Kit Masters, Inc. in Perham, where he works next to Randy Vroman, who has history in the racing world, having been a racer himself in the past. Vroman effectively became Mursu’s crew chief and has taught him the ropes during the past year.

“I didn’t want to do this if I didn’t have some extra support to help me out on those kinds of things and Randy was more than willing to help out. He has some adult sons, Wesley and Colby, and they’ve been a huge help since I got the car,” said Mursu.

After Mursu acquired his race car in July of this year, he and the Vromans quickly went to work finding everything that needed to be fixed on it so that he was able to get out on the track and get racing. Before the summer was over, he was able to do just that and found himself in the middle of his first race on August 17.

“I had a little bit of bad luck, but that’s racing,” Mursu said. “You never know what’s going to happen until that race is over, whether it be a blown engine or you have a flat tire or you’re in the wrong place and the wrong time—some cars get in a crash ahead of you and you don’t have anywhere to go—that can take you out of a race. So I had little bit of bad luck the few races that I was in this year, but we battled back and were resilient and honestly, it really has been a dream come true. It’s just been a blast.”

Mursu races within the Wissota Midwest Modified racing division, which has 20 sanctioned tracks in Minnesota and several others in several adjoining states and Canada.

“There’s a minimum weight restriction that you have to have at the end of the race,” said Mursu of his division, “At the end of the race, the top guys get weighed on a scale and there’s an inspection after the race, so there’s different rules and regulations per class per sanctioning body that you have to abide by. Getting into racing, I never realized how many rules and regulations there were until I opened up that rule book at the end of June.”

Although the end of the year for weekly racing at tracks around the region and throughout the state is Labor Day weekend, the warmer temperatures in October made room for the year’s Special Season, which consists of a variety of different racing events over the course of a weekend.

“I only got in three nights in Fergus Falls,” said Mursu. “That’s kind of my home track at the I-94 Speedway, but Special Season is a bunch of different racing events at different tracks where they have big payouts and people who travel from all over the country and from Canada. People come to the events from all over the place.

“I raced in a couple of those events, one was down in Ogilvie and the other one was in Fergus Falls, so really I only had five events that I raced in this year,” he continued. “Coincidently, if you don’t race more than five events within a season, you can carry over your rookie status to the next year, so that’s kind of why I capped it off at five actually. I could have raced again down at Ogilvie, but I chose not to do that to hold my five event status for next year.”

Within a typical racing season, many drivers compete in roughly 30-50 events. Mursu said that the top driver within the Wissota Midwest Modified division competed in 75 events this year, which he commented was a lot for one year.

“Each racing event, you have to pay an entrance fee, a draw fee just to get into the race,” he said. “Sometimes you get that payback back, sometimes you don’t. Then you have the fuel, you have to buy tires, oil and all that stuff. I typically change my oil every three or four races, so it all kind of adds up in the end of things. But it’s super fun.

“It’s kind of an expensive hobby and there’s no way I’d be able to do what’s going on in my life right now with the race car without my sponsors and without the support of them,” continued Mursu. “So I work at Kit Masters, they’ve been a huge sponsor, they’ve backed me up through this all which I’m so grateful for that support. So Kit Masters, Frank’s Auto Body, Designs by Tes, Erin Swyter, Pampered Chef Consulatant, GCE Innovation, Lakes Area Truck Repair and Mursu Farms—it’s really been so awesome to see the support from friends and family and my sponsors”

Mursu said that though the season was shorter than most for him, he enjoyed every one of his five events that he competed in. He said that in the Special Season events often are spread from practice on a Thursday night, Friday night heat races and B-main and A feature events on Saturday.

An A feature, Mursu explained, is where the top two to four drivers are pulled from the B-main features to compete in the main event of the evening. Larger payouts and points come from these A features. He almost made it into an A feature, before a problem with his race car during a heat race put him out of commission for the evening.

“That was pretty exciting to be able to take part in that,” he said. “I didn’t know coming into that they would have these practice sessions, which is super cool because there are a lot of adjustments that racers put in their cars and it’s weird, but a small little adjustment here or there can make a world of difference on how the car races on the track and just the comfort of the driver and how you feel and how you can drive and get around the corners and all that kind of stuff.

“Obviously, the faster you can get around the track, the more likely the chance you’re gonna be up towards the top of the class or top of the race,” he continued, “So you want to be as fast as possible. That’s why they call it racing, right? My goal for next year is to run 40-50 events, but we’ll see. Time will tell, obviously, things have to be working right to be able to run that number of events, but I think we’re ready for that challenge.”

Apart from the racing side of this season, Mursu brought his race car to the NY Mills School recently to show the fourth grade class (his son Jamie’s class) his race car and talk about the ins and outs of his new life in the sport.

“When I bought the car, it was a pretty significant lifestyle change for me and for my family, specifically for my kids. So when I bought the car, I was doing some thinking about it and I thought to myself, I have to make this purposeful,” he said. “So I thought about it for quite a while and the purpose I came up with was to share my excitement, to share my love for racing with everybody, but specifically with kids because that’s really where my dream started. That’s where my goal started to own and drive a race car and so that’s kind of where my focal point was. So when I go this opportunity to bring my race car to the school to show the fourth grade class, honestly, that has been the best part of the journey so far.

“Just being able to see those kids’ faces light up, just seeing the car in general, but then hearing and feeling the car running, is just something that, if a kid has never felt that before, or been around racing, that was the best part of this journey,” Mursu continued.

Mursu said that he didn’t want to detract from his original goal of becoming a racer and owning his own car to drive down the dirt track as that was the best point of his dream, making it that far and fulfilling his childhood goal. He said that his ability to show local students his race car and to open their eyes to the world of racing was a goal beyond that, one he hadn’t even realized was so important until recently.

“I don’t want to discount the level of excitement and how proud I am of where I was, where I wanted to be and where I am now,” he said. “But honestly, it’s all about the kids and all about spreading the love and excitement for racing and it’s been super awesome.”

Mursu said that like the support for his sponsors, friend, family and community members, he also learned how supportive the racing community is, even in the heat of competition.

“Going to all these different tracks and all these different events, the support that I’ve received from fellow racers in the racing community, like my pit neighbors over the course of those events—I had no idea who they were before pulling up next to them in the pit, but I definitely know them now,” he said. “Just that over whelming support and the want and desire for them to help out their fellow racers. Even though you’re competing against them on the track, they want to see you succeed and I want to see them succeed. What happens on the track stays on the track. If you don’t have a car that’s running, you’re never going to get on the track and you’re never going to have that competition.”

Mursu said that competition makes each racer want to be better and motivates them to reach those goals. Among the competition and support of fellow racers, those feelings of excitement and competition spill over into the stands among the audience at these events.

“I appreciate the fans that come and watch,” said Mursu. “They don’t have to come and cheer for me, but I feel the love and so do all the other racers too, so come out to a race and get some excitement.

“There’s no other thing that can boost your adrenaline than to be standing next to a race car when it’s running or to be out in the stands watching a race and feel that roar once that green flag drops,” he continued. “It’s the adrenaline rush that you can’t get rid of. Everybody has their hobbies, but I would love for everybody to experience a race live. Watching Nascar on TV, you don’t truly feel the rumble of those cars and really feel it inside your body. I can’t explain it until you actually feel it.”

Looking forward to next year, Mursu plans to accomplish some of the goals he wasn’t able to meet during this racing season and excited to learn even more about the sport during the off season.

“My goal next year is to get to those 40-50 races, but even specifically beyond that, get to the A feature, which I know is going to happen. I know it, I feel it. It’s going to happen eventually, timing is everything. But to get into the top 10, top 5, get into the A feature, and then obviously to win a race. I can’t imagine what the feeling is going to be like when I win a race and to be able to pull up to victory lane and wave that checkered flag to show the audience that I was the winner. Eventually, I want to get that first win and I’m going to savor that so much. But that’s in the future, we’ll see what happens.”