Cordes reflects on 100th career win

DUNKERTON — Any time someone in sports is coming up on a milestone, the weight of the questions from well-meaning friends, family and fans only adds to the pressure.

For Dunkerton IMCA Modified driver Troy Cordes, he may have only had to wait a few races to go from 99 to 100 IMCA victories, but he certainly was more than ready to get the feat accomplished.

And in his typical fashion, Cordes didn't overstate how he felt in the moment his 100th career victory.

'Yeah, it wasn't too bad,' Cordes said with a laugh. 'I don't know if it's a huge deal or not, I guess. I guess we did it, anyway.

'I wanted to get it out of the way because everybody kept asking me when I'd do it. It's great though.'

The milestone was poetic, if nothing else.

Cordes' first win in an IMCA Modified came at Independence Motor Speedway. His 100th came at — you guessed it — Independence Motor Speedway last Saturday. His home track is also where his son, Tristan, got his first victory — a couple weeks ago in a MicroMod.

'I got to thinking about that, and that's a little bit more special, so to speak,' Cordes said. 'We got the first win and the 100th win at the same track. That's really cool.'

As happens with a big victory, Cordes' friends and family reached out in droves after Saturday night.

His biggest laugh came when he was asked how many people reached out.

'Oh man, I don't even know. Quite a few,' Cordes said. 'I don't even know if I answered them all, to be honest with you. That's why I had to put a thanks up (on Facebook).'

From a larger perspective, Cordes' accomplishment is incredibly unique among IMCA racers. IMCA confirmed Cordes became the 42nd Modified driver and 74th in its history in all divisions across the country to notch 100 sanctioned wins. For context, more than 35,000 drivers have competed in the Modified division alone since the class' inception in 1979.

Still, Cordes isn't one to dwell on such things. He's certainly very proud to have reached that number, but laughed away any notion that it's a big deal. He said he's not sure what 100 wins means in the large scale.

'I don't know, to be honest,' Cordes said. 'There's been quite a few people do it, so I don't know if that means I've been racing too long or what the story is for sure.'

So will Cordes be around long enough to get to 200 victories? A swift 'no' came from him, and said milestones aren't the idea.

His joking and dismissiveness about how important the win was typifies his reaction to most victories. But that doesn't mean he isn't proud or grateful for what he's accomplished. Cordes said all he can do is go on to the next one, and will keep after it as long as winning is possible.

'It was really cool to get the win,' Cordes finally admitted. 'We're just going to go out every week and try to click off as many as I can before I can't do it anymore.

'I suppose I'll quit when I can't do it anymore. I've got my kid coming up, and he got his first win a couple weeks ago, so we'll continue on as long as he wants to do it.'

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