Racing season hits green light with mixed positives, negatives

As the 2007 racing season begins, there are significant parts cautious optimism mixed with a dash here and there of potential gloom surrounding what the future holds for the area’s racing future.

Bright spots include:

•New management at Spokane Raceway Park.

•A rebirth of the old Northwest Tour.

•An off-season infusion of new management and the subsequent growth of the winged sprint car class.

•Another season for the region’s oldest racing class, the Northwest Modifieds, which traces its roots back to the mid-1960s.

Troubled areas are:

•Numerous court proceedings have Spokane Raceway Park operating a bit tentatively, but at least on a full 2007 schedule.

•Homes continue to march closer to Stateline Speedway’s Rathdrum Prairie property.

Here’s a brief look at key news from our two Spokane-area racetracks.

Spokane Raceway Park: Operating under new management with J.R. Tice at the helm, the SRP schedule has a fresh look. That may re-energize fan and racer interest and keep it a racetrack past this season.

Tice is a long-time drag racing fixture since his days as an official with the old American Hot Rod Association. He’s had nearly a full year on the job after taking over management duties last June 1 after the court-ordered ouster of SRP founder Orville Moe.

Schedules are slightly scaled back on both the drag strip and stock car track. There’s also a move to make the half-mile oval the special-events track for which it is designed. Tice has also streamlined the road course schedule, making it less intrusive on events it shares with the drag strip.

“(I was) planning at the present time of having one week a month off on the drag side,” Tice said. “Give the families and wives a break. … We plan to run the first three weekends in May and close the fourth.”

While the drag and stock car tracks may be shuttered, the road course is booked, Tice said.

“Every time we’re closing the drag strip we have a road course event,” he said. “Last year we started with 25 to 45 cars on the drag strip. By the end of year, we were up right at 200. When we had those carryover road course events, we did not have room for drag cars.”

One other notable date has been scratched from the schedule – the Sunday that had traditionally been part of SRP’s old World Finals race.

That once mighty race that used to pack the stands to watch major leaguers like John Force, Don Garlits and Don Prudhomme has been scaled back to a two-day race, Aug. 3-4.

Tice said he’s concentrating on scheduling this race at night when crowds have been robust. He’s eliminating the Sunday segment that for the past decade or more has been a sparsely attended money-loser.

“Fans do not want to sit out in hot grandstands on an August afternoon. They want to be at the lake,” Tice said in defending his decision.

A new Nostalgia Fuel Dragster event is set for Sept. 14-15.

Everything else is just weekly racing, according to Tice. The once-popular Friday street racing will run twice a month, every other week, and the high school series will be integrated into weekly bracket events.

The oval track is again under the direction of Rick Rice.

“The oval will feature special events schedule,” Rice said. “We have 13 confirmed now and probably another four. The half-mile is a special-events track. It’s too hard to run a local weekly show. It’s too fast and (too) hard on cars.”

The season kicks off with “test ‘n tune” sessions from noon to 5 p.m. on stock car side. A single drag testing day will take place April 21. There will be no racing April 28. The regular season begins the first weekend in May.

The Northwest Modifieds open the oval on May 5, one of five appearances for the open-wheel class. The NSRA winged sprints will stop in Spokane on July 7.

The Inland Northwest Superstocks, a class that has run only at Stateline in the past, will have four races at SRP, the first May 19. The Late Model Challenge series appears July 14 and the Big Sky Late Models on Sept. 15.

The cloud that still hangs over the Airway Heights motorsports complex is the legal one.

SRP stockholders are awaiting who will be successful in a bid to buy the facility so they can, with luck, receive some long-overdue dividends. Racers hope that the likes of the Kalispell Tribe and Spokane County – two groups that recently surfaced as having either made offers or are interested in making an offer – to buy the 600-plus acres of property.

Spokane has been deemed too small of a market to be home of Washington’s NASCAR speedway. But it might not be bad insurance for that national sanctioning organization to step up and put down $30 million or so to have a back-up plan. A quick survey shows commercial acreage in the Bremerton area, NASCAR’s last best hope, in the $250,000-and-up range.

Stateline Speedway: Stateline Stadium/Speedway in Post Falls has released a schedule of some 56 events in the 17th year of operation by brothers Joe and Walt Doellefeld.

“Were very pleased with the lineup of events we have for fans and racers this year,” said Stateline Stadium/Speedway promoter Joe Doellefeld. “With Wednesday Night Fever, unique special events, and the variety of cars and talent of drivers at the Saturday night shows, there’s something every fan will enjoy.”

The track started two weeks later than in the past, hoping the weather will cooperate. It runs each week until Oct. 3.

Thirty weekend races are scheduled, primarily on Saturday nights. Hobby Cars, Street Stocks, Early Stocks and the return of Late Model 4s offers local drivers a chance to show off with many touring classes and series.

Among those groups visiting the quarter-mile oval are a host of open-wheel classes. They include the Northwest Modifieds (April 21, May 19, June 2, July 14, Sept. 15); Winged Sprints (May 12 and 26, July 28, Sept. 1 and 29); and WMRA Midgets (May 5).

The new Northwest Tour makes two appearances (June 9, Aug. 25), while the Inland NW Superstocks (April 28, June 16, July 7, Aug. 3 and 24, Sept. 22) and Late Model Challenge (Aug. 5) are other late models on the schedule.

Special events include the International Drift Championship on May 6. Stateline will present its annual Demolition Derby and Fireworks Extravaganza on July 3. The 2007 Idaho 200 takes place Aug. 3-5 with more than $35,000 in cash and winnings up for grabs for the region’s top stock car teams.