School district renews old ties with racers

Students from two schools in the Nye County School District got up close and personal with drivers from various racing teams from Best in the Desert Racing Association on Friday morning.

The two schools renewed old ties to the Best in the Desert organization with visits to J.G. Johnson Elementary School and Rosemary Clarke Middle School.

Those students that saw the racers got to talk to the racers themselves, received colored posters of the drivers and some even got T-shirts.

Nye County Superintendent of Schools Dale Norton, who got the racers to come out, said it was like old times.

“When I was at Manse Elementary School, Ivan Stuart was at Manse and we did it for six years,” Norton said. “That was from 1996 to 2000 Stuart came to our school. He was in his late fifties back then. I got into it because I got them to visit the schools. We got them in here. The race was in the spring back then. I got a late start to get racers here. We did this until it stopped racing here.”

“This is a whole new group of racing fans, for these kids don’t remember us coming to the schools,” Jason Coleman said. He said that he was one of the racers that remembered the old Terrible’s 250.

J.G. Johnson brought the kids out to the front of the school by class and the classes got to get up and personal with the cars and talk to the drivers.

“The kids seemed really excited and it’s good,” Coleman said.

There were four race teams that went to J.G. Johnson school, Canidae off-road racing team, with driver Scott Whipple and his number 95 Trick Truck; RPM, which is the team of Clyde Stacy and Justin Matney in his number 5 Trick Truck from Bristol, Virginia; Jason Coleman in his number 1071 buggy, with Coleman Motorsports; and ICR Motorsports showed up with two cars, Tim Carolan and his son, Nick Carolan. These two are a father-and-son racing team.

“We are glad to be back in Pahrump,” said Tim Carolan of ICR Motorsports, who came all the way from Tucson, Arizona. “We are racing in the 2400 class with a brand new engine that Ford has patented and put together. So we are their test module for them. We won the Mint 400 with this car and we are the class champions.”

Coleman said it was good for the sport because it generates fans. The kids get interested and start following their favorite team.

Two teams then went on to Rosemary Clarke Middle School, the RPM team and Jason Coleman. At Rosemary Clarke Middle School the two teams saw over 900 kids during lunch. The RPM racing team gave out over 300 T-shirts and would have given out more but ran out.

The Rosemary Clarke visit was a last-minute effort by teacher Terri Hee, who said the kids had a great time.

They were more than excited to meet the drivers, receive posters, stickers and T-shirts,” Hee said.

The RPM team’s Clyde Stacy went on to win the race overall and Justin Matney took third, while Jason Coleman and his team took fourth in his class.

Contact reporter Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com