With 2021 in our rear view mirrors, it is time to turn the page and begin another year and to begin the racing season one more time. So far I have not lost my enthusiasm to attack another season and until that happens, it is time again to press forward with a new season full of, I hope, new excitement, new challenges and opportunities with no doubt the certainty of some frustration and disappointment to go along with all the good times. All this of course, is to be expected.
2022 will start for me in the deserts of Arizona with three straight nights of racing at the Cocopah Speedway in Somerton, near Yuma, for the IMCA.TV Winternationals. On hand to race during this seven night series of races will be Modifieds, Stock Cars, Sport Mods, Hobby Stocks, Sport Compacts and Stars/Mod Lites.
In all, there will be seven full nights of racing here with Wednesday through Saturday shows for two straight weeks with the Sport Compacts being replaced by the Mod Lites during week two to make up the fifth division of racing. Next Wednesday night is the pit crew contest along with a special for Hobby Stocks and Stock Cars only. All other nights will see five divisions racing with the Mod Lites and Sport Compacts being added this year to the action.
Tuesday night, January 4th was the practice night with all divisions having an open night to turn and test their equipment in advance of the Wednesday night opener.
Cocopah Speedway is a beautiful facility located South of Yuma and on the Cocopah reservation and straight across the highway from the tribal casino. The track is perhaps a short half mile with wide sweeping corners which allow the drivers to carry plenty of speed. It has a nice surface that is relatively dust free and through the practice night the track stayed smooth and while it slicked up quickly, there was a nice cushion so that drivers were able to run all over the track.
The track is built in a low area with an irrigation canal running just behind the back straightaway and the large, cement slabs that serve as the grandstand are situated against the hillside on the South side of the track. The grandstand can seat several thousand folks with a big cement concourse behind the grandstands and the race tower. It has excellent lighting and is first class in all things. The pit area is very unique, built into the side of the hill and featuring three levels, the top level which is at the same elevation with the grandstand and spectator parking lot and is gigantic which allows it to host such big events with large numbers of race cars.
One gets plenty of exercise liking up and down the hills to the various levels of the pits, where some familiar cars and drivers were found but many that I had not seen before but not surprising given that a large number of the racers for this event are from California, the Great Northwest and the mountains of the West.
One driver I spent a few minutes talking to was Stock Car driver Steve Stone from California. He is the older brother of Modified(and now Stock Car driver) Paul Stone. Steve races for many years, then retired from the sport, only to get the urge again and start racing Hobby Stocks in California. However, he said the Hobby Stocks are not IMCA out there yet and since he wanted to travel with a goal of racing at a couple of special events, he bought himself a Stock Car this off season from Matt Hildebaugh from Iowa. In fact, he had not had the chance to change the tin on the car yet to his signature #73s as of yet.
Steve has a goal of racing the Boone Nationals and plans on being there this year as well as doing the Dakota Classic Modified Tour . He is retired and likes to travel so he plans on racing some Oregon tracks as well as his home track in California.
When I asked him about the sponsor on his car as well as many others in the pits, he said that Stone Manure Spreading was a joint venture including Paul, his father and Steve and that they made a lot of money over the years hauling shi*! And that money was used to help a lot of other race drivers out.
Something else I noted as I walked through the pits was that there seemed to be a number of Stock Cars that are really crowding the rules in terms of building race cars that do not look like Stock Cars. I always thought that one of the good points of the Stock Cars was that while they were fast and raced hard together, they actually looked like cars that could be driven on the street. I hope the sanctioning body works hard to maintain that appearance to these cars and not let them slip away into something that more appears to be some sort of "Super Stock Car."
After rolling in the track, practice started at 5:37 pm with the classes staggered as they got their laps in. While my numbers are likely not totally accurate due to some late arrivals as cars continued to roll into the pits all night, I had one hundred and eighty seven cars taking laps on the track including sixty six Mods, forty eight Stock Cars, forty eight Sport Mods, twelve Hobby Stocks and thirteen Sport Compacts. Some of the cars in the pits didn't come out and likely there were some late arrivals that I missed.
In the Stock Cars, Cody Johnson looked to be very quick while Sid and Donald Schott both had problems along with a smoking Jim Horesji and Zach Madrid came into the pits on the back end of the wrecker.
Fred Ryland looked to be about the quickest of the Sport Mods that I saw while Izac Mallicoat lost power and pulled into the infield.
The West Coast Hobby Stocks have some catching up to do as the Iowa drivers of Eric Knutson and Brett Vanous appeared to be the fastest of the group. Bobby Gallaher and Mark Merten were a couple that had issues.
Among the fastest of the Modifieds appeared to be Travis Denning(with Andy Eckrich turning wrenches), Tanner Black, Kollin Hibdon and Chaz Baca Jr. Cody Thompson pulled off early while the only incident that I saw involved Paul Culp and Tony Acierno. There was some body damage to each but nothing serious. However, Acierno later got into the inside berm quite hard and tore most of the front end parts off his car.
With Iowa drivers like Devries, Knutson, Vanous, Most(with two cars), Mallicoat, Richards, Kaplan, Adams, Jackson, Schmit, Doyle, Badger, Ward, Mills, Thompson, Drury, Bonine and Pittman on hand, Hawkeye fans will have plenty of drivers to root for.
Upper Midwest drivers like Scott Herron, Ben Reierson(two cars), Brandon Bombardo, Bud Martini, David Siercks, Tim Bergerson, Andy Altenburg, Tim Gonska, Dan Menk(two cars), Jim Horesji, Joe Feyen, Doug Hilkemann, Damon Richards, Austen Becerra, Shawn Harker, Don Shaw, Aaron Johnson and Mike McKinney were also on hand so they will have many people following their activities too.
After practice was done, the BMS Party in the Pits with Tri Tip Dinner was featured and then live music with "Downtown." I assume this all went down, as after three days of pounding the highway, I was ready to call it an early night and didn't even stay for the end of practice.
All races this week and next will be covered on IMCA.TV.
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