Biography

     While sitting in the stands at Big Sky Speedway throughout the 1979 season with his new bride, Mike Thoennes kept thinking about how much fun racing stock cars looked so one night he turned to her and said “We could do this!”  And Nancy, always the adventurous one, said “Lets go for it!”  So they went out & bought a car and started transforming it into a race car and by the next season had it on the track.  “At my first race after time trials, I noticed on the pit board that I had the pole position” Mike says.  “Then Chuck Ferree, one of the nicest guys I've ever met, informed me that the slow car for the night got the pole. Back to earth I came. Then in the first race, by the time we exited turn 2 on the first lap, I had already been pushed to the infield by the cars behind me so they could race.” Despite the humbling beginnings Mike says “he kept his mouth shut and opened his ears” to learn about this new hobby they had adopted.  And it was during this time they both learned what a nice bond racers formed with each other.  “I broke a front spindle in a race and left to get a part.  I only lived 10 minutes from the track but by the time I got back the car was fixed and ready to race for the main event.  I asked Nancy who fixed it and she said 'everybody', so my biggest problem that night was remembering which parts went to whom”.

     Over the next 22 years this couple would “pay back” some of the hospitality they were shown when they started.  Nancy was a 2 time secretary for the NWMSCRA and provided the racing results to the Interlake for many years.  Mike was a 3 time president and on the  board of directors for years.  In 1995 as president Of NWMSCRA Mike proposed instituting a Hall Of Fame to honor those who have contributed the most to racing in the valley and has served as director of the HOF until last year when Jim Seymour replaced him. “Racers from the past will stand next to racers of the future in recognition of their accomplishments”  Mike said at the time.

     Being included in the HOF now is “the greatest honor in our racing career” Nancy says because the inductees are chosen by your peers.  “When Montana Raceway Park threw their support behind the Hall of Fame, I knew they appreciated the history that is behind racing here” says Mike. “ And it brings back memories of how good my wife looked under a car helping me change a transmission with oil all over her beautiful long hair”