LOVELOCK — During the Frontier Days races this reporter had a chance to interview the series promoter Mike Scott, who is also the president of the Winnemucca Regional Raceway. He’s the force behind this new series that’s causing big jumps in car counts at Northern Nevada tracks.
Mike Scott, the father of the I-80 Challenge Series stands by an IMCA Modified during the Frontier Days races at the Lovelock Speedway.While the series started this spring, its history goes back over 10 years.
Although the I=8- series is new, its history goes back several years.
“Dan Fitzgerald came up with the idea about 10-years ago but it never really took off,” Scott said. So I brought it up a few years back. This was when the Wild West Tour had run its course here.”
A couple of years ago there was a sub series of the Wild West Tour, the Iron Man series run by Ken Hansen. As Scott said it was 10 races in 10-days at five different tracks.
“That went pretty good but it was just really expensive to do so we stopped, went back and regrouped. This year we said, ‘OK’ so we got all the tracks together.”
All the track presidents agreed to work together and not overlap their dates when the series was running. Now a driver doesn’t have to choose where to run and allows for an expanded schedule.
“That’s why most of these tracks are running two-day events once a month or twice a month at the worst. That way we can say this weekend we’re going to do an I-80 Challenge at this track and in the next two weeks we’re going to do it at an other track,” he said. “It gets these guys to travel a little bit more and increase the modified car counts.”
Asked about the response from drivers, Scott said it’s been pretty good.
He added that since not everyone can make all the races the point’s purse has been structured to give the second place driver a pretty good payoff. For the driver’s that won’t win the championship it gives them something to shoot for.
“We asked the tracks to add a little extra to the pot to give these guys a little bit of incentive to come,” he said. “What ever points you get at the track, those points are what we’re using for our point fund so it’s not double points and nobody is getting any extra. “We’re taking the points from the night we have the series and this goes to their I-80 total.”
So far the series has generated higher car counts for the tracks involved. Scott mentioned he’s seen nights when Lovelock Speedway would have eight or less modifieds. On Friday there were over 20-cars at the track and almost that many on Saturday.
“It makes me feel good that we’re actually helping the track, the community and given the drivers a bunch of cars to try and pass,” he said.
As to the format, the tracks run their usual show. Usually qualifying heat races then a main. Scott said the series doesn’t impose any additional rules on the host track.
“We don’t ask the tracks to do anything, just to expect a bigger car count and if you can throw a little extra money to entice these guys to show up, please do,” he said.
At the end of the season there’s going be a big party in Winnemucca where the point’s fund will be distributed and a pretty good spread is planned for those attending.
Looking forward to next year he said, “Hopefully we can add a couple more races. Right now we’re running Elko, Battle Mountain, Lovelock, Winnemucca, Fallon and Fernley. If some do well they might want to do two dates.”
The next stop for the series will be on August 29/30 at Fernley 95A Speedway. As usual there is a 6 p.m. start to the action and it promises to be two days of high speed, slam bang IMCA racing.
Especially since each night’s winner gets a pretty good payout.
