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Prescott Valley Raceway offers fast family fun
Whether the drivers are local, from out of the county or out of state, they all come to the Prescott Valley Raceway for one purpose to have fun driving fast.
Many of them are practically novices, only beginning their new hobby when the PV dirt track opened a year ago. Others have motor oil running in their veins, such as Senior Airmen Ben Peterson, age 22, from Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix, who has been racing since age 6 in Wisconsin under dad, Archie's guidance. Archie now lives in Prescott.
Peterson races "the American Outlaw" in the IMCA modified class, under a large umbrella of sponsors. The opening into the vehicle is narrow and makes it appear the car was built around the driver.
"That's why you've got to be small," said Peterson.
The raceway allows everything from mini sprints, which basically have a motorcycle motor, to small block V-8 engine pure stock cars. In between are 4-cylinder sprints and mini stocks, and IMCA modified stocks.
Specifications for each class are extensive and listed on the raceway's Website: pvraceway.com.
Racers start their evening's experience on the raceway with a "mud pack" they repeatedly circle the wet track to pack it, then exit to scrape the mud off their vehicles. Next comes the "hot lap" segment, where they fine tune their vehicles as they drive. Heats for seeding are the next laps, and finally, what the crowd has been waiting for, the feature races.
Peterson said he will drive at speeds up to 90 miles per hour for 20 laps in a feature race.
He enjoys the PV Raceway, but wishes the banks were a little steeper, more like the Canyon Raceway in Phoenix, where he also races.
Several locals keep their day jobs but race on the weekends in Prescott Valley.
Kent Ewart, from Prescott, is in his second year of racing, He has a half dozen sponsors for his '77 Ford Pinto, which he races in the mini stock class. Ewart said in the past he has participated in demolition derbies and drag racing.
"I haven't been able to afford stock car racing until now, with the Prescott Valley Raceway here," he said.
He likes it because, unlike demolition derby, "You get to 'bang' a little every once in a while but you still have a car left when you're done."
He quickly added, "You don't do it on purpose. That's the difference between that and this."
Ewart also said the cars don't require a lot of maintenance, but the learning curve is "huge" to negotiate the turns, as opposed to driving on a straight raceway or demolition derby.
He said he doesn't clock his speeds, but figures they're around 50 to 55 mph. He hasn't seen any cars in his series on their roofs no "bad crashes" at the raceway. "The dwarfs and midgets sometimes go over," he said.
Ray Bramlet comes from Chino Valley to race his mini stock car. Now in his third year of racing, Bramlet was runner-up in his class this past racing season. Ray Taylor brings No. 23 from Chino Valley to compete in the mini stock series.
Carl Riley of PrescottValley has been racing his lime green mini stock car for two years. He also used to drag race. The other drivers teased that all of their cars have specks of green paint on them from No. 44 because of Riley's driving style.
Mini stock racer Terry McCraw is also from Prescott Valley, but Jason Parks drives up from Spring Valley to compete in his red mini stock.
They enjoy the camaraderie and even some antics at the track.
Saturday, the track's owners (who prefer anonymity) ordered pizza for the infield workers, who wait patiently with their wreckers. They had the Domino's driver circle the track twice carefully with the racers, who were in on the joke, while the announcer hollered, "Get that car off the track!"
They also arranged to have the announcer get the crowd to sing the birthday song for someone.
They tout the raceway as family fun, and are building a radio-control track for the kids. Drivers as young as 14 can compete on the real track. Attendance averages 700 to 800 people per night.
The owner, "Jim," says he counts off improvements for the track with each paid admission.
"It all goes back into the track," he said with a laugh.