Growing up watching his father Mike at the local dirt tracks, Mark Dobmeier has always been around the race tracks. At the age of 6, Mike Dobmeier bought young Mark a go-kart to play around with and at age 8 he could finally race it competitively. Mark raced go-karts until the age of 16 and was very successful at it. He won many races and even won 5 straight track championships. His father was racing sprint cars at the time, but when Mark was a senior in High School, Mike became the National Commander of the non-profit organization called DAV (Disabled American Veterans). Mike told his son that if he could make the Honor Roll all four quarters of his senior year, he would be able to take over the wheel of the sprint car. So, Mark buckled down and made the “A” Honor Roll two quarters and the “B” the other two, which put him in the seat.
He started in 1999 racing with NOSA, the Northern Outlaw Sprint Association, and traveled throughout his home state of North Dakota to Minnesota, Wisconsin and parts of Canada. Mark ended up winning the Hard Charger Award, Rookie of the Year Honors and also finished 2nd in the point’s standings that season racing the family owned team.
The next few years brought Mark numerous Track and Points Championships from NOSA and Grand Forks’ River Cities Speedway as well as many victories. At the later part 2006, the Dobmeier family owned sprint car program teamed up with local Sioux Falls, South Dakota, car owner Dave Lunstra. This soon became the alliance that topped them all.
Starting a new season with the newly combined team, Lunstra/Dobmeier Motorsports had nothing but great results. The team put forth an effort that was second to none and won the Huset’s Track Championship and finished just outside the top five in points at the legendary Knoxville Raceway, conquering the Rookie of the Year Honors. 2008 was a season which almost no one could top. 26 total feature wins. Track Championship at Huset’s and a Top 3 in Knoxville. The Team nearly had the 2008 Front Row Challenge in the bag in Oskaloosa, Iowa, after dusting Joey Saldana and Daryn Pittman in one-on-one match races, before tangling with lapped cars while pulling away with the feature. “Having a season like last (2008) is certainly amazing,” explains Mark. “I take one race at a time, week to week, so it really wasn’t until this last off season before I realized what our team had accomplished. I can’t say enough about our team. We all have a lot of fun and we make it fun and I think that’s the reason we had the season we did. If you can’t enjoy it, well what’s the point?” Look for Mark this upcoming season of ’09 contending for the track championship at both Huset’s and Knoxville Raceway.
