The Ernie Mincy Early Thaw series at the Central Arizona Speedway, as it was known by back then, last was run in 2008. However, that early season special event for the Late Models was reinstated this year and the opening night of the series was held on Thursday night, January 19th at the recently reopened and know known as Central Arizona Raceway. Brad Whitfield, the promotor at Cocopah Speedway, was recently named as the new promoter of this facility with their first race held in November of last year.
The driving force behind this event, however, is Don Shaw from Ham Lake Minnesota. Don, who is a long time Late Model and Modified driver and a successful businessman in Minnesota, is also the owner of I94 emr Speedway in Fergus Falls Minnesota, one of the nicest racing facilities in the Midwest and certainly not as well known by the public in other areas as it should be. This track hosts the annual WISSOTA 100 as well as a number of other traveling series events each year along with a very strong weekly program.
Don is also a home owner in the Phoenix area, likes to bring his race cars out to the West in the Winter and race them and has seen a diminishing number of Late Model opportunities available in Arizona to do just that. He also wanted to give the racers from the upper Midwest an opportunity to race in the Winter time with rules that make their cars competitive. Thus, the Ernie Mincy Early Thaw Series was created, working with Whitfield here at Central Arizona Raceway. Well over thirty drivers from the upper Midwest responded by showing up for this series.
Five different classes of cars will be competing over the course of a seven race series over eleven days here in central Arizona. Late Models will be the top attraction with a set of rules that sees the open motor, spec engine and even the crate engine cars all running together on what would seem to be fairly even terms. IMCA Modifieds, Stock Cars and Sport Mods, a staple of tracks in this area, will also be racing along with the Limited Mods which is a set of rules that allows WISSOTA Midwest Mods, X Mods and USRA B Mods to all race together. All three sanctioning bodies had cars represented for this opener.
This race series is an experiment this year, something to build on with the hopes that it will do well this year and the plan is to make it bigger and better each year. While not offering any huge purses, just glancing at the purse it looks like it is bigger and better than the recently run event at Cocopah which had a huge number of drivers in attendance. So we will see if this event builds in numbers as we head into the weekend events when it is easier for the local drivers to get here and when the very popular Mods are added to the show which will be next week.
Shaw went all out for t his race, bringing a number of his key staff members all the way down from Minnesota to help with this event in key roles such at track prep, ticket sales and even the announcers with Minnesota announcers Chris Stepan and "the Legend" Ron Krog, calling the action. Tech inspection was provided by Gene Kloeckelman, who is a WISSOTA tech at home, is well versed in all the different group's rules and winters in Mesa AZ. Shaw also trucked down much of the track prep equipment needed for this event as CAR is sorely short on such equipment. He brought down his water trucks, packers and even a grader which they used to do some reshaping of the track and needed when Mother Nature threw them a curve with over two inches of rain in the last week to an area that gets much less than that a month normally. He also provided Late Model race cars that both Billy Moyer and Ken Schrader are racing this week.
The format for this show is a little more Midwestern friendly also. The IMCA classes will be using the draw/redraw format while the Limited Mods and Late Models will be using passing points with the top eight in points redrawing for the feature races.
Shaw is also using this series to do a little experimenting, running this weekend the IMCA Mods with the Limited Mods. The IMCA Mods must run a 6400 rpm chip instead of their normal 6800 rpm in the crate motors while the open IMCA motors must run a 7300 rpm chip instead of their normal 7800 chip. There was some blow back from the Limited Mod drivers not excited about racing with the Mod drivers but Shaw said he would adjust if needed and as it turned out a Limited Mod would win their main event over the Mod later.
Seventy nine cars were on hand in four classes for the opening night of racing and a decent sized crowd trickled in as the evening wore on with the 5 pm early start time no doubt as issue for local fans. The Late Models were the high light class of this show with twenty six of them on hand for the opener with one car in the pits, waiting for the driver to return on Friday from vacation in Mexico. Eight different states were represented with a strong field of drivers from the upper Midwest, where this series was designed to entice drivers from. It was also an interesting mix of cars with everything for open motors running restrictor plates to spec engine type cars to 525 and 604 crate motors on hand, all mixed together. The number of cars was such that no B Features were required with heats and a main in all four classes, actually quite perfect on what would be a quickly cooling evening in the desert.
Twenty five cars would start the Late Model feature after Steve Stultz damaged the front end of his newly purchased from Johnny Scott car and couldn't get it fixed in time to start the main. North Dakota's Dustin Bluhm would get the early lead and he and Moyer played some "games" on the first two attempts to get the race going with them finally settling in racing. Bluhm has thrashed all day to replace a motor after he blew one up on practice night and he was rewarded with a strong start for his efforts. Moyer was quickly challenged by Ricky Weiss, formerly a native of the Winnipeg MB area but now living in Tennessee with his whole family joining him on this outing as they have a home in the Phoenix area also.
Weiss would stalk Bluhm through the first half of the race but Dustin would hang tough. The Late Models would be the only class of the four racing tonight that seemed to have a bad case of "the yips" as several minor spinouts would slow the action. On lap thirteen, after sizing up Bluhm for several laps, Weiss would blow by on the outside in turn one to take over the lead and he would then race on relatively unchallenged the rest of the way to get the win.
However, there was still a very good battle for the second through fifth spots with Jason Strand making a strong run up from fifth starting spot along with Ryan Corbett to challenge Bhuhm for second. Moyer had slumped all the way back to fifth but he came fighting back up to join the battle also with Buhm unfortunately getting dumped which cost him a good finish.
Weiss would go on unchallenged at the end for the win with Strand and Moyer swapping he second spot back and forth three times on the final five laps before Strand would take the position. Jared Zimpel made an outstanding drive as he came from twenty fourth to wind up fourth after he smoothly worked his way through the field with Corbett, broken shock and all, would complete the top five.
The Stock Cars would have a spirited race of their own in the main event which would see three different leaders in twenty laps. Minnesota's Ryan Satter would be the early leader with the duo of Anthony and Zach Madrid challenging him. The three of them raced closely together during the first half of the race while making a charge to the front was Jim Horejsi who has started eleventh.
Just at the halfway point of the race, Satter pushed up the track with both Madrid's getting past him with Anthony in the lead. However, just one lap later, Zach would make the pass to take over the lead. At this time both Satter and Horejsi, in the top five , would park their cars and Jordan Zillmer would become a strong contender. He would move into second and was challenging Zach Madrid for the lead when he was dumped in turn four by Anthony with both sent to the back for the restart.
Zach would then drive on for the win with Trent Grager coming through the field to finish second. The top five was completed with Kevin Roberts, Zillmer and Scott Sluka.
It would be tough luck for Minnesota's Alan Bohlman who was slated to start on the pole for the Limited Mod feature but serious motor issues at the end of his heat would park his car. Jake Smith would then start on the pole but he would be beaten into the first turn by Devin Fouquette for the early lead. Smith would follow closely for the opening laps but would then be overtaken for second by Preston Carr who would then close in on Fouquette.
With this race going nonstop from start to finish, the laps would wind down quickly. However, Carr made several inside attempts to get by Fouquette and when they didn't work, he made a surprising outside power move in turn one, blew past Fouquette and drove into the lead. Once in front, he quickly drove away and would cruise the rest of the way for the victory worth a grand to the North Dakota driver. Fouguette would finish second while Lucas Rodin would charge up from the tenth starting spot to finish third ahead of Smith and Dan Wheeler.
The Sport Mods would round out the evening and in a race that would see three different leaders, it would be Clay Erickson that would get the win. Nic Savaglio would hold the point for the first lap until he was overtaken by Matt Sanders for the lead. Meanwhile, Erickson was on the move after starting ninth as he drove past Crystal Hemphill and Tate Johnson to move into second.
He would make an outstanding move on lap nine driving deep into turn one and rolling around the top side of Sanders to take over the lead. Also on the move was Iowa's Joe Docekal who was up to third and charging. A lap fourteen yellow would bunch the field and despite a left front wheel that was dangling badly on his car, Docekal would drive past Sanders into second and then make a serious challenge to the leader.
However, Erickson would fight him off to take the win over Joe with Sanders, Johnson and Andy Sole completing the top five.
This was the first time I had been to Central Arizona Raceway at Eleven Mile Corner at the Pinal County Fairgrounds East of Casa Grande Arizona. The track is a big three eighth mile oval that is kind of D shaped and just a bit oddly shaped at that. It has big sweeping turns and despite slicking up quite a bit it still carries a lot of speed. Passes have to be well calculated and Midwestern drivers thought it raced somewhat like either Miller Central Speedway in South Dakota or Madison Speedway in Minnesota and I couldn't come up with a better comparison myself. It has no outside walls but plenty of run off space and I'm told that walls are in the plan eventually. The track has one unusual rule in that if you slip off over the banking and out of the track that you must return to the pits and no retry by flying back over the banking is allowed. My guess is this is because of a safety concern.
This is plenty of seating with three big grandstands on the front chute, two with open grandstands and one covered concrete grandstand that features cement slabs for seating with no bleachers as such. However, if fairness to all, no lawn chairs are allowed in the grandstand, much like is the rule at Cocopah. Bathrooms and concessions are located under the main grandstand with one oddity noted; the bathrooms have steps down to use the facility and I can't recall ever seeing restrooms where you had to go down steps at a track before to use the facilities. There is currently no scoreboard at the track.
For the opening event of this series, it was a very well run and smooth operation. The races started right on the dot at 5 pm and it took only one hour to run all the qualifying heats. they took a short break to do a little track prep and then moved right into the features. The entire program was completed in less than three hours and by 8 pm we were on our way to a post race tour of the pits. While some would say that part of the early hour was because the field of cars wasn't huge, that may be true but sometimes it is nice to just have a quick show and not have to sit through a whole series of seemingly endless B Features just to get to the main. Especially for a midweek show. In any event, the track officials moved things along nicely all night.
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