Pahrump Valley Speedway events off to a good start

A new class of racers debuted at the speedway to add to the excitement of opening day. The new class is the Mini Dwarf class and is made up of kids from 9-13 years old. Although this class will not be whipping around the turns at fantastic speeds, it gives kids in the community something else to look forward to.

The kids will be racing on their own track which was built in the infield of the regular track.

Track owner Chad Broadhead said the Mini Dwarf class did great for the first race. It had four drivers on Saturday. Broadhead said it will do better because half the cars are not even built yet. There are two divisions for the Mini Dwarf class, juniors and seniors. The juniors are 5-8 years old and the seniors are 9-13.

“For kids we don’t charge,” Broadhead said. “It’s free to come out and race. There are three makers of this class in town.”

In addition to adding a new class, Broadhead expects to see some growth in some of the older classes. He said the Mini Stocks will be the biggest class and the one that will grow the most this year. Over the weekend they had 11 drivers.

“This class will keep on growing because it is so cheap to get into. We had some new drivers this weekend and it’s just an affordable car to get into. People don’t want to spend a lot of money,” he said.

The Pahrump Valley Speedway opened up last weekend and the car count was up to 55 cars for the opening day, which is great news for the racers and great news for Broadhead. The count was up by 12 cars over last year’s opening.

“The car count didn’t surprise me,” he said. “I expected the car count to be between 40 and 50 cars.”

One of the best races of the evening according to Dale Giessler, flagger, was the Super Stock race. In that race, Rafael Flores came in first, Jim Wulfenstein came in second and Tristan Wedmore third. Giessler said it was good racing and he liked the way Flores and Wulfenstein battled for first place throughout the race.

He said the crash at the end of the Modified race also gave people something to talk about.

Jeff Talley and Dan Fitzgerald were coming off turn three. Talley was up high and in first and collided with Dan Fitzgerald and this ended the race for both of them. There were no serious injuries from the collision.

Since it was the last lap the field was frozen when the caution came out and Dan Snowden was in the lead in third. He was the winner of the race, but many of the fans were confused when Clifton King passed Snowden on the caution to avoid the wreck. Some thought King should have won.

Broadhead said the IMCA rules were clear. Snowden was the winner because the race ended when the caution came out. During a caution cars are not allowed to pass. King came in second and Jeff Seesholtz was third.

Dale Giessler contributed to this story.