Kalispell’s Alex Lessor Eyes Prestigious Montana 200 Victory After Nearly Two Decades of Trying

POLSON — When Kalispell’s Alex Lessor stood victorious on the windowsill of his Ford, arms stretched toward the sky and the white and blue No. 53 machine parked across Mission Valley Super Oval’s winner’s circle, he had checked an important box.

White with a gray chassis, a departure from Lessor’s typically black race cars, the car itself is a call-back to Baker native and Northwest Montana Stock Car Racing Hall of Famer Bob Schweigert, who suggested the colors.

Lessor’s car owner throughout much of the second-generation racer’s career, Schweigert passed away in 2020 as the chassis was being built by Midwest Super Late Model crew chief Toby Nuttleman.

Lessor fetched the car’s bones from Wisconsin and finished it over roughly 18 months at Schweigert’s former shop in Kalispell. His victory in the Twin 50-lap race feature on June 22, event No. 2 in the first-ever Montana Big 5 Super Series, was Lessor’s first victory in the car.

Blue numbers on each door are hand-lettered by longtime Kalispell sign painter Gary Gudmundson. Lessor said he chose No. 53 some two decades ago because it was one less than his father’s No. 54.

Fifty-three seconds is also how quickly Lessor’s buddy and current crew chief, Nate Collier, was knocked out in a bygone boxing match in Kalispell.

A fifth-place finish in the nightcap propelled Lessor to the top of the Big 5 points standings, three points clear of Canada’s Tyler Emond and 23 better than Spokane’s Jess Havens.

“The best way to describe [racing] is like a drug,” Lessor said. “It’s hard to get out of your system when you’re embedded into it with your life.

“That’s all I really knew growing up and that’s all I’ve really known. All my friends and people that I’ve hung out with were racers. It’s a difficult lifestyle to live because you spend a lot of money and you don’t get to do a lot [of racing].”

At 43 years old, Lessor has been racing more than half his life.

A 1976 Chevy Malibu was his first chariot as a 17-year-old, handed down from his father, Larry.

Growing up with two father figures, his biological dad and stepfather Randy Vickhammer, Lessor was surrounded by streams of advice from another NWMSCRA Hall of Famer.

Lessor was a legends car champion as a 23-year-old at Kalispell’s Montana Raceway Park and finished third in his first Montana 200 as a Late Model rookie in 2006. He won two Super Late Model track championships in 2019 (Kalispell and Post Falls, Idaho) before his home track permanently closed a year later.

In nearly two decades of trying, though, Lessor has fallen agonizingly short of winning Montana’s biggest asphalt oval race, the three-decade-old Montana 200. It’s Dale Earnhardt-esqe strife for a victory paying $10,000 in a race once compared to NASCAR’s Daytona 500.

A second- and two third-place finishes, plus a few top-10s, dot Lessor’s Montana 200 resume.

In 2016, driving what Lessor remembers as one of his best cars ever, he blew a motor in a qualifying race. That remains the only Lessor-less Montana 200 since 2006.

Luck, Lessor said, tends to take over on race day. Preparation on the days preceding increases a driver’s shot at some good luck.

“It’s honestly kind of a heartbreaker for me,” Lessor said of the Montana 200. “We’ve had a lot of close calls in races I feel like we could’ve and should’ve won.”

Marion’s Ken Kaltschmidt is the last Montana native to win the event. That was 2003. In the race’s 33-year history (no race in 2020), only four Treasure State wheelmen have claimed victory.

Schweigert, Lessor’s former car owner, was the first in 1992.

His grandson, Page, will spot for Lessor on Friday in Montana 200 heat races and on Saturday in the main event, 32 years after Schweigert’s triumph.

“It’d mean the world to me,” Lessor said. “You have almost 20 years of attempts at it and you just feel like you’re running out of tries. I’m not getting younger, that’s for sure…

“I have a 5-year-old son that’s into racing. I can see him, eventually, wanting to be a little race car driver. So, it’d be cool to put a Montana 200 on my name for him to live with for the rest of his life. That may be something to chase.”

Lessor, in a black and yellow No. 53, was part of what is believed to be the biggest Montana 200 field in 2011. Over 50 teams showed up that year and Washington’s Shane Mitchell pocketed first-place money of $15,000.

This year, the car count hovers around 30, including Kalispell’s Agni Howell and Jason Robinson, Columbia Falls’ Kevin Goe, Ronan’s Cory Wolfe, and Helena’s Jason Kreth.

Landon Huffman, the 2022 Late Model Stock Car champion at North Carolina’s Hickory Motor Speedway, will pilot a Racing Dynamiks-prepared car.

Qualifying begins at 6 p.m. Friday at the 3/8th-mile oval, with 30-lap Super Late Model heat races to follow.

A last-chance qualifier is slated for 5 p.m. Saturday and the Montana 200 main event begins at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online here.

Washington’s Shelby Thompson is the race’s reigning champion.

Montana winners: Bob Schweigert (Kalispell, 1992), Cory Wolfe (Ronan, 1994), Mark Owens (Libby, 1995), Ken Kaltschmidt (Marion, 2003).