Minneapolis, Minn, -- ARCA driver Todd Hansen traded his Simpson racing helmet for a Lincoln Electric welding helmet to build two new chassis from the wheels up during the off-season.

This is a first for the talented and versatile driver. The team opted for two Laughlin bare chassis in January and the sparks have been flying through a couple weeks of sub-zero weather and two big Minnesota blizzards. Hansen and crew chief Dan Peterson enlisted the help of veteran NASCAR crew chief Cliff Champion to look things over in the final stages of the chassis build.

Champion's resume reads like a Who's Who in the sport and includes stints with Ricky Rudd, Dale Jarrett, Benny Parsons and Richard Childress, to name a few. "Todd and Dan did a great job," Champion said. "They surprised me with their workmanship and overall understanding of race car construction." Champion may get the call again as the cars are now having bodies hung in Charlotte, Champion's home.

The situation would be even better if the sponsorship efforts were more successful.. "It's a tough deal," says team owner Bill Hansen. "We haven't given up and we realize we are not alone. Many ARCA teams are in the same boat. We might even sell Tupperware out of the back of the hauler," Hansen quipped.

Hansen plans to run a limited ARCA schedule. Initial plans call for a shakedown test in Kansas in early April and races there in late April. The schedule resumes in Iowa and Michigan in June. The season ends with Nashville and Milwaukee in August. Additional races will be added if additional funding materializes.

Hansen also plans to run his late model Monte Carlo at Upper Midwest short tracks "just for fun," he says.

TOLEDO OH (11-4-06) - You may not know much about ARCA RE/MAX Series rookie Todd Hansen. After all, 2006 was his first season on tour, and he comes from that far away from stock car country place in the north.

Yet, in just seven series attempts, the 24-year-old Minneapolis, Minnesota driver, with zero sponsorship, made big-league results. Despite two DNF's, one from a broken motor at Kentucky Speedway and the other from a wreck at Chicagoland Speedway, Hansen hovered in the top-10 everywhere else in ARCA's most competitive season on record - that would be 54 years and counting.

"Todd's finishes didn't surprise me at all," said team owner and father Bill Hansen, a retired 747 Captain for Northwest Airlines. "He's excelled in everything he's done; why would this be any different?"

From super late model track champion at I-94 Raceway and Fergus Falls Raceway to the RE/MAX Series, from graduating with honors from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration to All-City hockey player, Hansen is not afraid to step up to the plate. Once he's there, homeruns are not out of the question.

Well, maybe not a homerun quite yet in the increasingly competitive RE/MAX Series, but his batting average is nothing to sneeze at.

"He absolutely loves the big tracks," added Hansen. "If he didn't have a windshield, he'd come back with bugs all over his teeth from smiling so much. It just seems to come naturally for him."

And it came with impressive results. In his first series attempt at Nashville Superspeedway in April where there were a mind-boggling 72 entries, Todd, in his father's unsponsored car, qualified eighth and finished seventh. To give you an idea of the quality of the field that day, Yates development driver Stephen Leicht won the race with Brewco Motorsports development driver Brad Coleman trailing in second. Eight-time RE/MAX Series champion Frank Kimmel was third followed by veteran and former series Rookie of the Year TJ Bell in fourth. Willie Allen was fifth ahead of Gateway winner Cale Gale (running the full Busch Series in '07) in sixth with that 'unknown soldier' from Minnesota in seventh. Drivers who finished behind Hansen included Dodge Development driver Chase Miller, Steve Wallace and Evernham Motorsports development driver Erin Crocker just to name a few.

Then, with just one car while they worked on another, the bottom started to fall out. They broke a motor at Kentucky and then wrecked their only completed car in qualifying at Kansas.

Undaunted, the team steered back north for Minnesota and completed construction on their other Laughlin chassis in time for anther trip to Nashville in August. For Hansen Motorsports, the team is actually, mostly, two guys - Todd and his lifelong, grew-up-together hockey pal Dan Peterson, both of whom work on their ARCA car(s) fulltime in the shop back home. It's a two-man operation.

"After the Kansas wreck we went down south to Laughlin's shop; they had a car we liked, so we bought it," said Todd. "They gave us such a great deal on another Laughlin chassis so we bought that too and towed 'em home." Towing home for the Hansen's is an ordeal in itself. Outside of races at Chicagoland, Milwaukee and Kansas, the ARCA RE/MAX Series does not exactly lend itself to an easy traveling schedule proximity-wise for the born and bred Minnesotans.

Nonetheless, the Hansen's got their newer stuff home where Todd and his life-long pal Peterson put one together in time for a late-summer surge that started atNashville, where they finished 10th. After that, it was a solid 11th place finish at Michigan followed by an impressive eighth place finish at Milwaukee.

Chicagoland was next, but unfortunately they had to tow a wrecked racecar back home after getting caught up in an accident on a restart.

"We initially thought the car was salvageable, but after putting it on the jig, we learned everything but the left frame rail was bent. So now we have two wrecked cars, so we're starting over.

"I just bought a plane ticket for a week from Monday," added Todd, who was on his way farther north to go deer hunting for the week. "We'll rent a U-Haul and bring back two Laughlin chassis - intermediate cars. Tony Burgess of Laughlin's been so good to work with, and we've had such great results with their equipment; we won't go anywhere else. Those guys at Laughlin are quality people.

"We've already stripped down our shop, reorganized everything, painted the floors; we're ready to build cars now. We took everything salvageable off the two wrecked cars and we'll use everything we can on the two newer ones. I'd give anything to run the whole tour; we absolutely love the series, but unless we get some partners, we just can't do it."

No one understands the financial obligations from the Hansen's world more than Todd's dad Bill, who's been footing the bill as best as he can in retirement.

"I just can't afford to do what we did last year," said Bill Hansen. "That's what these next three months are for me; we've got to find some outside money to get us through. We'll still run three to four no matter what, but if we can find the right partner sponsor-wise then we'll run 10 to 12. Of course our ultimate goal is to run the entire schedule. We love the series and there's nothing more we rather do than run the whole deal.

"Todd loves the big tracks, and does very well at them. And he's already got three late model championships under him on the short-tracks, so we know he can get the job done. He just loves to race, period. He'd be the next Ken Schrader if there's a way."

And it's still a long way from Minnesota, but if there's a will, there's a way.

Sometimes things go your way, and sometimes they do not. For Todd Hansen, the race at Chicagoland was one of the do nots. Todd's car was just not very fast, and all of the crews' efforts to increase the speed were to no avail. He qualified about 30th which was good enough to make the show.

As the race progressed Todd did his thing and gradually worked his way up to 13th A green flag pit stop was just beginning when the yellow flew. He rejoined the pack in 14th place. At the completion of the pit stop things were looking good for another top 10 finish There was enough fuel to complete the race and also 4 fresh tires. The car was still not really fast, but was very drivable. Then things went wrong. Before the green flag fell some cars in front of Todd mixed it up and one got turned around. Todd nearly had this situation avoided when he got punted from behind and shoved into the entire mess. It was just one of those deals where there were to many racecars and not enough room! Todd's car suffered substantial damage.

Such is racing, but when you have only a single car it is very problematic when that car is wrecked. Todd's car is severely damaged, as is the budget. The team had planed on racing in Iowa, but for now, that is on hold.

ARCA rookie driver Todd Hansen feels that he had solid results this past week with the race at Milwaukee, and then a successful test at Chicagoland Speedway.

ARCA considers the Milwaukee Mile to be a "short track". The tires used at Milwaukee are bias plys, which are much less expensive than the radials used at the superspeedways such as Chicagoland. The team was pleased to have a full compliment of 10 tires in the pit at the beginning of the race. Starting 17th., Todd quickly worked his way up into the top 10. Then he worked his way up into the top 5, running as high as 2nd for a considerable number of laps.

Things were looking good for the Hansen team when the decision was made to sacrifice track position for new right side tires. A late yellow facilitated the right side tire change and off Todd went. The new tires didn't work. The car developed such a push that Todd was forced to change the position of his hands on the steering wheel so that he could turn the wheel far enough to negotiate the corner. He finished the race in 8th. A post race examination of the right front tire revealed a very large chunk of the tire missing. The team feels very fortunate that the tire did not blow. Losing a few places at the finish is a whole heck of a lot better than pounding the right side of the car into the wall.

The test at Chicagoland accomplished exactly what was needed. Testing is expensive, and with a limited budget the Hansen team is forced to watch expenses closely. That translates into the fact that only one set of tires is allotted to a test. The goal is not to "win" the test session by setting fast time, but is instead, to familiarize the driver with the track, verify that the gearing is correct, and to balance the car such that the driver "likes" it and the car is fast.

The team has always believed that if you have to ask directions to the track you are already behind when you get there. Such should not be the case for the Hansen team at the Chicagoland race. They know the way to the track and are ready to race.

It's been quite awhile since we brought this site up to date. Things have been really busy with the racing and that hs to take priority. So, here's the summary of the Summer's activity.

In January we went to a Southwest tour race in Phoenix. After about 2 laps of practice we blew the motor. We borrowed one from Kenny Schrader and qualified for the race. On lap number 2 several cars spun and then gathered up Todd. The result was a broken shoulder for Todd and a completely destroyed racecar.

The ARCA opener was at Daytona, which we passed for financial reasons. The next race was at Nashville Super Speedway. This mile and a third high bank is really fast. There were over 70 cars present for the race. Only 32 would make it on time. Todd qualified 8th and finished 7th. Not a bad start for his ARCA career!

Next we journeyed to Kentucky Speedway, a mile and one half super speedway. This was a test date. The engine blew almost immediately due to a broken fastener.

We returned to Kentucky for the race. Todd qualified 11th and was running well in the race when the engine broke. This time it was an oil pressure problem.

After lots of head scratching and a lot of changes we went to test at Michigan International Speedway, the 2 mile oval. Oil pressure problems immediately manifested themselves and we went home.

So, we went to Kansas. This mile and a half high bank is exactly what Todd likes. For most of the morning practice he was second quick. He was ecstatic with the car. Perhaps to ecstatic! Todd went to qualify, poured it into turn one, came far enough out of turn two that he was looking at turn 3, and the car swapped ends. The car hit the inside wall and was destroyed. Todd was not seriously injured. However the guy who makes his seats does lots of sled crash testing and after measuring the seat deflection figured that the crash was an 80 g crash.

We took the car to Charlotte where it was pronounced junk-not worth fixing. It took lots of phone calls and lots of help to find another car. What we found required extensive work to prepare it so that it would be competitive. Todd works full time on the cars and has one full time paid person helping him. That person is Dan Peterson. Todd and Dan met when they were about 6 years old. Among other things they played hockey together and were both chosen for an all city team in their senior year. Dan is an extremely competitive person with a can do attitude. 2 volunteers who also put in many hours in order to keep the operation going assist Todd and Dan. They are Pete Ingebrigtsen and Jeff Schmidtke. We are also fortunate enough to have help from Scott Hansen and Scott Brandt. Without these guys the operation would founder.

We next traveled to Nashville. Todd qualified the new car in 28th, just barely making the field. However, when it came to race time he finished 10th. Not bad for the first time in the new car.

We next went to Michigan International Speedway where Todd qualified 32nd. and finished in eleventh position. He was also named the hard charger of the race.

There have been other races but the above synopsis covers the important stuff. We next go to Milwaukee, then a test at Chicagoland, race at Chicagoland, and then one more race in Newton, Iowa.