Send your Readers’ Racers to 5555 Concord Pkwy. S., Ste. 326, Concord, NC 28027

Gordon Anderson of Canada competes in the Claimer Class at Edmonton International Raceway in Wetaskiwin, Alberta. He’s been competing in the class since it began at the quarter-mile asphalt oval in 2000. Anderson calls his four-cylinder, “Wrangler Chevy,” the best car he’s campaigned. He finished Third in the track’s King of the Claimers race on July 26. We’re guessing that Anderson’s favorite driver might have driven a Wrangler Chevy bearing a yellow and blue paint scheme and the No. 3 a few years ago.

Standing By Her Man
Patricia McVay of Samson, Alabama, is proud of her husband, Stacey McVay, who just completed his third season at South Alabama Speedway in Kinston. After two years competing in the Super Stock Division, Stacey moved up to race in the Modified Division. In his first Modified race on May 10, he finished Fifth after his car suffered carburetor problems. Stacey hopes to eventually compete in the Late Model Division. Patricia says she supports her husband “110 percent” and expects his dreams to come true because he has the heart of a champion and never gives up.

Family Affair
Two brothers, Scott S. Cook (left) and Jim Cook, shown with 5-year-old Chase Cook, have operated Cook Bros. Racing Team for the past 12 years. The Uncasville, Connecticut, residents compete at tracks in their state-Waterford Speedbowl, Thompson International Speedway, and Stafford Motor Speedway. After falling two points shy of winning a championship at Thompson International in 2000, the team captured the ‘01 Limited Sportsman title at the 51/48-mile asphalt oval. That same season, Scott was Rookie of the Year in Late Models at Stafford. This past season, after three years of racing at both Stafford and Thompson International, the Cooks curtailed their schedule to concentrate on competing at Stafford.

Young Gun In South Dakota
Lane Brenden, 14, raced this year in the Hobby Stock Division at Lake County Speedway in Madison, South Dakota, and at Huset’s Speedway in Brandon. This was his first year competing in stock cars after racing go-carts the previous three years. In the first half of the season, young Hurricane Lane won two B features at Lake County and had several Top Fives at both tracks. He’s supported by a pit crew consisting of Rocky Brenden, Pete Brenden, Ty Hanten, Bill Marken, Steve Borkowski, and Scott Borkowski. One of his sponsors, Ricky “Rudd” Atkinson, has every issue of Stock Car Racing since its inception in 1966. Go Lane! And thank you, Ricky!

Racing And Loving It
Jon Heidenthal, 43, of Myakka City, Florida, has been racing since he was 11, beginning with dirt bikes in Ohio. Jon, shown in Victory Lane with two of his three sons, competes in the Street Stock class at Desoto Speedway in Bradenton, Florida. He just completed his second full season as a Stock car racer. In 2002, he captured three feature wins and finished Third in points. Jon’s wife, Stefani, says the whole family has a love of racing and they all enjoy the show every Saturday night. She says Jon gets as excited about getting his issue of Stock Car Racing each month as he does about racing.

Looking Good
Scott Bowersock earns his living by painting race cars, helmets, motorcycles, and anything else needing a professional look. In his spare time, he races a Late Model-which, of course, sports a paint job by Bowersock Signs & Lines. In 2000 Scott won the Stock Car title at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. He raced Late Models in 2001 and captured a feature win at Montpelier (Indiana) Motor Speedway before a crash totaled his car and ended his season prematurely. He bounced back this season with a car bearing his motorsports art business as the primary sponsor. Scott’s brother, Jerry Bowersock, competes in the No. 23J Late Model. We have a hunch Jerry’s paint job is just as spiffy as Scott’s.

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To do this, the Young Racers Club (YRC) was established starting in the June 2005 issues of both Circle Track and Stock Car Racingmagazines and Web sites. This club is open to any racing participant (driver, crew,etc.) from the ages of 16-23. Entry is FREE and each month a winner is selected at random and will have their picture published in the magazines and online along with a picture of the car they are involved with and a short bio of their racing participation and future plans. They will also receive a $250 gift certificate from the Sponsor of the Month.

Click here for the Young Racers Club entry form and either mail it to Young Racers Club, 9036 Brittany Way, Tampa, FL 33619 or submit via e-mail at yrc@primedia.com . Please include a picture of the car and a picture of yourself when sending the entry form. Pictures cannot be returned. See the sidebar below for the complete rules.

Mill Springs, NC

Sixteen-year-old Summer Tessneer is this month’s Young Racers Club winner. The Mill Springs, North Carolina, resident comes from a racing family and actually has two cars that she races: a Mustang and a Pinto. “My whole family raced, so I wanted to carry it on,” says the teen.

Although Summer has only been racing for two years, she has consistently placed in the Top 5 in races at Harris, Thunder Valley, and Cherokee Speedways. In 2005 she finished Third in points in the Young Guns division. She followed that up with a Second-Place points finish the next year.

Summer recently had some bad luck on the track when she flipped her Mustang. She was knocked unconscious and had to be taken to the hospital. Luckily, all the X-rays were negative and she came away with nothing more than a small bruise on her arm. In fact, this hard-core racer was back at the track the following day.

Summer credits her dad with giving her the support and drive to excel behind the wheel, and points to fellow racer Blake Kirby as her racing hero. “He helps me out a lot and we have become very good friends.” While she would like to someday get a shot at racing in NASCAR, she is very content racing at her home track. “I just love the speed of the car and the adrenalin rush when I’m on the mud,” she says.

Well, Summer, those of us here at the magazine have wrecked our share of race cars (and even some passenger cars) over the years, so we know how hard it can be to get back to the track, especially when you’re on a budget. Hopefully, the $250 gift certificate from RHS that’s coming your way will help take the sting out of that wreck. Glad you’re OK!

Hummelstown, PA

July’s Young Racers Club winner hails from Hummelstown, Pennsylvania. Sixteen-year-old Kyle Ebersole started racing go-karts at age 10 at Path Valley Speedway and Shippensburg Speedway in Central Pennsylvania. He raced weekly for a few years before making the move to the Pennsylvania Dirt Karting Association (PDKA) in 2004. He raced there for two years and finished Fourth and Fifth in two separate classes during the ‘05 season. While racing in the PDKA, Kyle also took a spin in six WKA National events, where he posted two podium finishes and one fast-time award.

In 2005, he also started racing Tobias Slingshots at Linda’s Speedway in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Ebersole’s first year in a Slingshot was pretty good, with one win in 12 starts and a 12th-Place points finish. But he really shined in 2006. “We decided to not only run weekly at Linda’s Speedway, but run the Slingshot by Tobias Southern Tour and National Tour,” said Ebersole. “By the end of the year, I competed in 34 races and had 4 wins, 21 Top 5’s, and 31 Top 10’s.” Those numbers translated into two championships: Linda’s Speedway Track and Slingshot by Tobias Southern Tour. In addition, he finished Second in the National Tour Series.

In 2007, Kyle is making the jump to asphalt Modifieds. He’ll race weekly at Mountain Speedway in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The 10th grader at Lower Dauphin High School says he will also be racing in some dirt Modified races and hopes to continue to race in more Slingshot events. That’s a full schedule for a teenager who also enjoys skiing, music, golf, and hunting.

Kyle has proven his abilities behind the wheel of a Slingshot, and he says that if he is successful in the weekly Modifieds, he has his sights set on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. Look out, Mike Stefanik-Kyle Ebersole is headed your way. A $250 gift certificate from Day Motorsports will, no doubt, help this young Pennsylvania driver outfit his new Modified for the ‘07 season. Good luck, Kyle, and keep us posted on how you do!

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At the highest levels of our sport the linkage between the sponsor, the driver, and even the team or organization is inextricable. When you hear the name Jeff Gordon one of the first things you think of is DuPont, or possibly Pepsi, and with Tony Stewart the immediate link is with Home Depot. These businesses have recognized and developed a link between their customers and the racers, so there is a clear and distinct linkage between these teams, drivers, and the sponsors.

This does not happen by accident. It takes work and a long term relationship between the sponsor, the racers, and the team to get this kind of recognition. The value to the business is difficult to place a dollar value on, but it is measured and can be determined right down to the penny. There are numerous businesses that track just how often a product is mentioned and the amount of time the product is seen within the media, including TV, radio, print, and movies, to name a few.

It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that it is difficult to field even a local Saturday night racecar solely out of the pocket of the racer. Even if you were to win every week, the purses at the local dirt track or paved oval just could not support the program. Without some additional funding from friends, family or a sponsor of some type, the show would be much smaller or non-existent.

So, how does the local Saturday night racer get a sponsor and the funds to help run his team? The tried and true way is to develop a sponsorship package-a document that defines the team in a favorable light. This document, along with an impassioned pitch, is supposed to get the potential sponsor to see the light and give the racer a very favorable financial package.

The majority of sponsorship packages are trying to sell the prospective sponsor on the driver and the car. The problem is that most racers are trying to sell something when in reality you are entering into a partnership with the sponsor. For the package to really work where both parties benefit, they need to work together. It is much more than just writing a check. Let’s examine the content from a typical sponsorship package and see what many drivers are showing to potential sponsors. The document will often include text and photos that delineate:

• A profile of the team and the members and possibly some team history, often with pictures and a profile of the team members in uniforms.

• The look of the car in its current state.

• Pictures of the tow rig and trailer.

• A cost breakdown for the weekly needs of the team, although rarely a budget of weekly costs are included.

The document may also show pictures of the racecar in the potential sponsor’s logo and painted in the sponsor’s colors. This is easily done with a digital photo and good photo manipulation software.

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Buying a used racecar can be even more dangerous, not only because of the possible added expenses, but because equipment not up to par on the safety side of things could cost you your life. Having said that, I understand why people purchase a used car. In fact, the car I am racing this season in Hooters Pro Cup was purchased used two years ago. If you do your homework, research the car and the buyer, and avoid rushing into things, then you can end up with a great machine capable of winning.

A lot of the rules that apply when purchasing a used street car are applicable to purchasing a used racecar. However, avoid the temptation to purchase a used racecar simply because you really, really want to race. After you have determined what class you want to be driving in and at what tracks, then you need to visit those tracks. Nine out of 10 times you will find a car for sale from the division you choose. Before anything is said to the car owner, sit back and watch how the car runs that evening. Speak with other drivers that have raced against it and find out how the car usually runs. If the car is usually finishing seventh out of an eight-car field, then I would suggest spending your money elsewhere. Also, it would be wise to ask around to see if anyone recalls the car being involved in any recent hard crashes. Record mental notes to be used later.

The car itself should be looked at closely before any money is exchanged. But what if you do not know what to look at, or what to look for? That’s all right, because there are a few factors that will show you what type of life the car has had. Of course there are always exceptions to the rules, but these tips will go a long way in assisting you in purchasing a good used racecar.

First, the gas tank won’t lie to you. I am not speaking of the fuel bladder, but rather the steel casing the fuel bladder fits into. After a hard wreck where the rearend has been heavily damaged, teams often save money by simply beating the dents out of the tank. If you crawl underneath the car and see several wrinkles on the tank, then you know at some point a bent chassis component put that bend in the tank.

A car owner could simply purchase a new tank and hide the fact that the car was involved in a major accident six races ago. In fact, the complete front and rear chassis components (or clips) can be replaced rather easily. Most manufacturers start in front of the firewall and replace everything forward when they cut off a front clip, which means the firewall can also be a point of reference to see how many races the car has been through. I am not referring merely to bends or wrinkles here. If you notice holes that were cut for electrical wires but no longer have any wires traveling through them, then that might be an indication that the car had a previous owner, or at least another type of engine.

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“I didn’t want racing to go away from my local area,” Naumann says. “The TSRS series is my baby. It’s my goal and reason for running the track.”

Naumann has been involved with Thunderhill on and off almost from the beginning. The 3/8-mile D-shaped oval in central Texas, about 15 miles south of Austin, opened for the first time April 18, 1998, under the management of Brian Calloway and Jim Lynch. They hired Naumann as General Manager in 1999, a position she held for three seasons.

Both of Naumann’s parents were racers. Her dad had been a race promoter, and she has done it all, from serving as trophy girl to actually racing. She first won a championship in a ladies’ class and then took Sixth and Third in Street Stock championships, so she had a good idea what racing was all about. She felt it was important to develop a strong relationship between drivers, crews, race officials, and staff, and she worked to build solid classes for weekly shows. She also worked with some of the touring series in central Texas. Family matters caused her to leave track management but she was still in the pits cheering for family members who raced there.

In 2002 she learned that San Antonio Speedway wasn’t going to run its Limited Late Model class in 2003. It seemed like a good opportunity to put together a touring series. Meetings with drivers in Houston, San Antonio, and Austin resulted in the creation of MAN Promotions Enterprises and the Texas Super Racing Series. Car counts in the first year ranged between 27 and 32 cars. “We started off with the focus on the return of the family style racing that was there back in the ’80s,” Naumann says. The last three races of that season, called the Texas Triple Crown, played to near capacity crowds.

Meanwhile, things weren’t going quite so well at Thunderhill Raceway. Lynch wanted to either lease the track out, or close it, and eventually bought Calloway out. In 2005 Naumann became a partner with Lynch in running the track and eventually bought his stake. But Lynch sold the land to the local concrete company whose land abutted the track, and retired.

“This year (2008) is my second year running the track by myself,” Naumann says. “I have a three year lease and the owner has no plans to do anything with the land.”

Subleasing has also helped with expenses, as Naumann leases to America’s Auto Auction, which operates Monday through Friday on the grounds.

“You can tell a woman runs this racetrack,” she says proudly. “Things like Lysol and antibacterial soap in the bathrooms and we’ve ‘fluffed up’ the grounds. It’s 100 percent better.”

The grounds are kept up on a regular basis now. “Before they waited until just before an event to mow,” says Naumann. “The perception was that the track was out of business.”

In addition to sprucing up the grounds, the track now has a drive-through tech shed/driver’s lounge. With the help of River City Drywall, what was once just a metal shed now has sheetrock walls and ceiling, four garage doors, and dedicated office space. The remodeled building was shown off for the first time at a meeting for drivers and car owners in December 2007. A separate media center in the VIP suite area has been created. Later improvements to the VIP area will include a suite for use for private birthday parties.

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The track, located on US 27 just east of Palmetto Expressway in Hialeah, was built in 1953-’54 by the Greater Miami Racing Association (GMRA), hosting its first event in July 1954. Local driver Herb Tillman took First-Place honors driving George Nelson’s ‘34 Ford modified coupe, kicking off a 51-year legacy for the southernmost short track in the United States. As the old pre-war race cars gave way to ’50s era race cars, Hialeah soldiered on as a hotbed of South Florida racing.

Over the years, famous drivers from different racing organizations have taken laps on the Hialeah oval. NASCAR legends Bobbie and Donnie Allison cut their teeth on the 1/3-mile oval before moving on to the bigger tracks and spotlight of stock car racing. Some Hialeah veterans would say that Donnie learned how to fight at Hialeah, giving him the edge over Cale Yarborough in the famous encounter between the two at Daytona in 1979.

In 1957, former Formula One champion Juan Manual Fangio of Argentina made his only laps in an American Midget racer at Hialeah. Over the years, well-known short-track racers such as Dick Anderson, Gary Balough, and Bobby Brack ran at Hialeah. The track has been a great place for racers and fans over the years. One driver mentioned: “I learned how to race here, drink here, and fight here!”

Through all the hard-core racing, Hialeah only had one fatality in its 51-year history. In 1956, Don Campbell died of head injuries several days after he flipped his midget racer in a private test session.

Being an anti-NASCAR organization was tough for the GMRA as it ran the track. In 1995, GMRA hit hard financial times and could no longer pay the nearly $100,000 property tax bill on the track. The track’s landlord came to the rescue, setting up agreements with a series of promoters to step up and manage the racing on a weekly basis. In 2000 the track fell on hard times, opening the door for the land to be sold to developers. Plans call for demolishment of the track sometime in 2006 and construction of a Lowe’s and a Target store shortly after.

The last night of racing started that afternoon with a torrential monsoon as racers and fans were pouring into the track. It was typical summer weather for South Florida, rain and lightning for half an hour, then clearing skies and sunshine. Besides being flooded with water, the pits were flooded with racers–161 cars showed up to run the various events that night at the speedway. Some ended up in the parking lot because no pit stalls were left.

Adding to the racer turnout was the massive crowd. Over 5,000 fans, former racers, and locals showed up, with a huge line at both gates even at 9:30 when racing was starting. The irony was not lost on the Hialeah regulars, everyone joking, “if they had a big turnout like this every Saturday, the speedway wouldn’t be closing!”

Famous racers Jerry and Darrell Gwynn showed up for the festivities. Known more for their exploits on the quarter-mile straight track, both South Florida natives spent time racing on the Hialeah pavement. Despite being severely injured and incapacitated in a horrific accident while making an exhibition run in England during 1990, Darrell always has a smile on his face.

The Florida Fastruck and Fastkids series visited the Hialeah oval, along with the usual Limited Late Model, Street Stock, Mini-Stock, and Cyclone classes. The crowd wasn’t disappointed, with tons of door-slamming, paint-swapping action in the various classes. In the Mini-Stock class, Hialeah veteran and multi-time track champion S.C. Klinger took the checkered flag, but failed post-race inspection, passing the win and last winner honors to Ricky Thorpe. The Jeff Dufresne Memorial race went to Joe Winchell, who was greeted in Victory Lane by Herb Tillman, the first winner at Hialeah 51 years ago.

Even though the track will be gone soon, its history will live forever in the memories and pictures of racers who made laps on its asphalt and the fans who watched them. Long after the Lowe’s and Target stores open on the property, racers will still walk the aisles and tell customers and store employees, “I used to race right here.”

If you have any intersting stories about Hialeah Speedway, e-mail them to us at patrick.hill@primedia.com. Be sure to put “Hialeah Story” in the subject line, and include your name, where you’re from, and when the story happened. If possible e-mail a photo or two with the story. Watch for all the stories in a future web posting on stockcarracing.com!

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