Young guns and surprise guests turn Firebird Raceway into an action packed racing holiday weekend

November 15, 2009 by RDC
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Halloween weekend in Chandler, AZ usually brings high temps and trick or treaters; however this year would bring the rumble of Offroad racing.

October 31st marked the beginning of the Whiplash Halloween Race. This course is located at Firebird Raceway in chandler. The track is about a mile long, has long sweeping turns, fast straight aways, and close technical sections. All the racing took place on Sunday with the practicing happening all Saturday, and the practice would prove to be just as exciting as the racing.

Racers from all over Arizona, and from parts of California and Nevada, traveled out to Firebird Raceway to do battle with other competitors. A couple of young guns would shake things up this weekend, as Mitch Porter (Mark Porter’s son) would be taking over the reins of the Dragon Fire Pro2. He is 16 years old and doesn’t even have his driver’s license yet, this race would be his third time behind the wheel of the Pro2.

Dustin Smith, a local 1450 driver would be hungry for a win this would mark his second race. Saturday would be a long and hot day of practicing. While some drivers would take it easy and get a feel for the track which can change a lot during the race others pushed their racecars to the limit and then father.

As 1377 a buggy caught a rut and rolled coming into turn four. After the practice the UTV’s raced. The UTV’s were broken up into three classes, China Lites, Pro Mod, and Sport Mod. The UTV’s raced on the track for one hours, seeing who could last the one hour would prove to be more important than who had the fastest lap time, and after the dust settled Eric Bartlett in pro mod would come in first doing 47 laps, with Branden Sims and Mike Wolfskill taking a close second and third. In sport mod, Jerry Thompson would take first holding out for 43 laps, then Eric Bergman and Terri Kary rounding out the top three. That would conclude Saturday’s action.

Sunday the Trophy Karts would race first. They were broken up into two classes, PW and Mini class. They raced for 30 minutes, which once again would prove that you must first finish race to finish the race first. The Trophy Kart was a very competitive race as they were rolling and pushing their Karts to the edge, left and right. In the PW class Resse Bailey would clinch the first place spot doing 18 laps and Parker Steele would run a close second place one second behind bailey, and Kelsey Mao from Las Vegas would come in third. In the Mini class, Gray Steele would take the checker; he completed 19 laps, with Kol Bailey a close second only three seconds behind Steele, and Chris Neese rounding out the third spot. Earlier in the day Shannon Campbell showed up, and wanted to go racing, so he entered his old rock buggy in because the new one was clean and ready to go to SEMA. Before the race he took a couple of practice laps to get the feel for the course. Then the race took place; however before the race the decision was made to race all the trucks and buggies together at the same time on the track, so that was going to make for some exciting and intense racing.

After the race started Shannon Campbell (class One) and Scott Martenson (class 10) would battle back and forth for the lead. Then Martenson got tangled up with a lapped buggy putting him out of the race.

As for the trucks, Rick Thomas (TT) and Mitch Porter (Pro2) were challenging each other for the lead of the truck class, and then a mandatory caution went out, to clear a few wrecked racecars off the track. After the mandatory caution the exciting racing continued, as Shannon Campbell was again out in front, but close behind him was Lonnie Hart (class 10). As the white flag waived Campbell was out in front, but a rock punctured a hole in his radiator, causing him to drop back and Lonnie Hart to take the win, and Shannon Campbell to take Second with Mitch Porter reeling him in for third.

For the class break down, Mitch Porter took first in Unlimited Truck, Shannon Campbell took first in class one, Scott McCracken took first in class 8, Lonnie Hart took first in class 10, Carl Rohrer took first in class 5, Alan League took first in sport limited (class 13), and Dustin Smith took first in 1450 truck.

That would wrap up the exciting race weekend at Firebird Raceway.

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