Sioux Valley Cycle Club opens season with Quad TT event

The Sioux Valley Cycle Club northwest of Brandon near Renner kicked off the 2025 season over the weekend with a Quad TT event.

The season opener brings in Quad competitors from around the nation. This year, just over 400 Quads were entered, about 20 or so making at least a four-hour trek.

“It’s a great, great event,” said SVCC Quad organizer Zach Jorgensen, who’s in his third year of running the event.  

For many years, Quad racing took place on a dirt oval. However, because of the inherent danger of high speeds on a flat-track oval, the Sioux Valley Cycle Club has modified the racing to Quad TT, which races on a traditional motocross layout. The definition of that type of racing is that the track must consist of at least one right hand corner and one elevation change.

“Just like a sprint car or stock car racing, ovals have high speeds, you’re pitched sideways and one small mistake and the Quad flips over,” Jorgensen said. “The difference is we don’t have a roll cage.”

For 19-year-old Dell Rapids native Ethan Narigon, competing at his home track at SVCC is a welcome sight. He competes nationally and opened the season in April in Belleville, Ill.

Narigon finished ninth in the Open Class over the weekend at SVCC.

“It’s a lot more competitive. Winning a championship at Renner is fun because everybody knows everybody,” he said. “It’s hard to win there. You know how fast everybody is, and everybody is about as fast as you are. You always know who you’re going to be facing. When you race at Sioux Valley, you know people aren’t coming to play.”

The SVCC Quad circuit includes twists, turns, hills and jumps throughout what was formerly the oval dirt track. Riders can clearly get some air on the jumps, but Narigon said it’s nothing like what he encountered last month in Illinois.

 “There’s one jump down there that’s massive,” he said. “Everybody’s sending it. You might be in the air for just under a full second, which may not sound like a lot to a lot of people, but when you’re in the air, it feels like a helluv a lot of time.”

Matt Tanksley from Sioux Falls was in Renner on Saturday and Sunday. The 26-year-old is in his 22nd year of competing, so the season-opener at SVCC is nothing new. He finished first in the Pro-Am division over the weekend.

His last name may ring a bell to area automobile racing fans. His father, Jeff Tanksley, owned sprint cars driven by Chad Mellenberndt, Brian Schnee and Clint Garner.

Like Narigon, Tanksley also competes at other Quad events around the country.

“It’s hard to beat the rush,” he said. “Just the adrenaline. So much is happening so quickly. It’s a lot to take in and I think that’s where a lot of people get their racing addiction. People can’t get enough of it.”

Although his Quad racing takes him all over the Midwest, he, too, said the SVCC opener is one of his favorites.

“A lot of people come from out of state to run this track,” he said. “The first one is always big. It’s a two-day show and a lot of the people I race against out of state come up here and race this one.”

In all, the just-over 400 Quads competed in 19 different divisions. Jorgensen said he had hoped for a larger Quad-count, but SVCC was competing against a similar race in Tennessee the same weekend. Normally, Jorgensen said, the opener at SVCC draws more from the southeast.

Still, 400 Quads tearing up the circuit at SVCC on Saturday and Sunday was also met with solid crowd numbers. Many of those in attendance stayed on-site over the weekend in the campgrounds near the course.

There are several Quad events planned at SVCC this summer, highlighted by the Midwest Extreme Dirt Track series July 11-13, and the 5th Annual Gary Meyer Memorial. Jorgensen said both of those events will likely attract large Quad counts.