NARC NEWSLINE, By Jim Allen – January 6, 2018

Auburn, CA … It’s amazing what happens when everybody gets on the same page and works for a common cause.  As you are aware, your favorite race track promoters and sanctioning bodies descended on Reno at the end of November for the RPM Race Promoters Workshop.  The annual adventure allows everyone to break out their calendars and start shuffling their schedule puzzle pieces together.  For some it’s technical with a lap top, while others do it old school on a folded sheet of paper stuffed in their back pocket.  And in the middle is a unique collection of spreadsheets, Post-it Notes, highlighters, erasers, and to get it perfect, a sufficient amount of adult beverages.  For the 16-race King of the West-NARC Fujitsu Sprint Car Series, this exercise is a lot easier to accomplish than your average race track booking 25-30 events, all the while attempting to avoid any key conflicts.  And for that reason, you can find our schedule posted at NARC410.com

Other news coming out of the RPM Workshop was the State of California requiring all fairgrounds track promoters to raise their basic liability insurance from $3M to $5M per event.  Of course that comes with an added cost, so make sure you bring more of your friends to the races this year!  There was also a lot of legal-advice time spent on evacuation plans and what to do in case of a major emergency.  Nobody every plans on either of those scenarios, but it’s mandated by the new world that we live in today.  Let’s not forget that race promoting is a business, except with a whole lot more risk than a typical company located in your local industrial park.

SCHEDULE HIGHLIGHTS:  There will be five co-sanctioned shows in 2018.  The King of the West-NARC series will share the stage with the Civil War sprint cars at the Spring Nationals at Tulare and at Calistoga Speedway on June 23rd.  The Sprint Car Challenge Tour will team up with KWS-NARC on three nights including Placerville (July 28), Hanford (October 13) and the season finale at Stockton (November 3).  Most of those events will offer advance reserved ticket sales, so start warming up your VISA card to score some excellent seats. … There are no conflicts between the King of the West/NARC & SCCT schedule.  There may only be one with the Civil War series, but I haven’t seen their official schedule yet. … There is only one race in Chico and that would be the May 5th Dave Bradway Jr. Memorial. I know!  There should be more! …  The Peter Murphy Classic was bumped back to May 19th, which should make it even bigger and better!  In the meantime, go spend some money at Tachi Palace! … There is one rain-date on the schedule and that would be August 4th. … The 2018 year-end championship awards banquet will take place on Saturday, November 20th, just two short weeks after the season finale. Details to be announced.  … There are three races at both Tulare and Ocean Speedway. … The season opener at Kern County Raceway Park is less than 90 days away – April 7th to be exact! …

CHAMPIONSHIP BANQUET HIGHLIGHTS:  Bud Kaeding, car owner Morrie Williams, and the rest of the Zero Heroes team capped their 2017 season with a stack of accolades and prizes at our December 16th banquet in Santa Cruz.  It was title number one for Bud and the fourth for Williams Motorsports. …  Gio Scelzi, who was off racing a midget in Doquin, Illinois, was named 2017 Rookie of the Year. … Special thanks to Trophy City’s Dave Pusateri, who donated all of the trophies for the top 10 teams.  Dave is allegedly retired, but still manages to squeeze in the time and effort to support our series.  Thank you again.  … The special $1000 Williams Roofing bonus was not paid out this season.  This is the fan pill draw that awards a grand on race night if the driver in that starting position wins the feature.  So instead, Steve Williams reached into his wallet and kicked in an additional $1500 and we had a pill draw of the three eligible drivers who were in attendance.  The trio was Jarrett Soares, Bobby McMahan and Bud Kaeding.   Soares had his name drawn and ended up sharing the winnings with the other two.  Yet another reason to attend the banquet. … Roth Motorsports Team Manager Todd Ventura is an eloquent speaker and graciously acknowledged the efforts of Kaeding & Williams.  Only one-point was the difference between second and owning the podium at the end of the night. … A total of $62,000 was awarded, plus more than $25,000 in product and contingency prizes to teams in attendance. …

… There were two custom cast steering wheel trophies presented to the championship team.  To best describe them, they are of Hall of Fame quality.  In addition, they received championship rings.  The team also presented duplicate rings to all of the Zero Hero pit crew members.  The Northern Auto Racing Club presented Katie Williams with a special championship pendant.  We all know that Katie is the heart and soul of this team and she needed to be recognized. …  Andy Forsberg (Civil War) and Geoff Ensign (Ocean Speedway) were also honored at the event. …  Special thanks to Dean Mills for putting the video together.  It made for a great show. …  Bobby McMahan = Class Act! …

… The King of the West-NARC portion of the banquet started with an auction to benefit the NARC Benevolent Fund.  And it was a good one.  More than $9400 was raised for the cause.  A huge chunk of that came from the auction of a pair of VIP Suite passes to the NASCAR race in Fontana.  Heck, another $1500 was bid for a basket of Katie’s Cookies!  Yes, cookies!  It doesn’t get much better than that! … Along the lines of the NARC Benevolent Fund, Margaret Lingron, who was injured in July at Petaluma Speedway attended the banquet.  With the assistance of a walker, it was her first social outing since being injured.  She is working hard with physical therapy to be back to the race track in March. …

FAMILIAR FACES IN DIFFERENT PLACES:  Some sprint car drivers race some of the time, some race all of the time.  Kyle Hirst piloted the Dalton USA #1 in New Zealand with Peter Murphy working the crew chief role.  A pair of runner-ups and a fourth place finish earned him a third place finish in points. … Cory Eliason will be piloting a car nationally with Dennis Roth Motorsports in 2018.  This includes about 70-races with the Outlaws, All-Stars, King of the West and Knoxville.  I’ll mark him down for at least 10 victories this season.  In the meantime, Eliason has been racing in Australia racking up a bunch of hardcharger awards. … With Dan Simpson retiring from open wheel racing (for a while), Michael “Buddy” Kofoid is slated to drive for Harley Van Dyke in 2018.  Buddy is also racing “down under” this winter.  Heck, when I was 15 years old, I was happy just to make an annual trip to Disneyland or Universal Studios – much less Australia. …

… Fremont’s Shane Golobic and the potent Tarlton Motorsports team are going to make a serious run at the 2018 King of the West-NARC championship.  The Tarlton’s claimed the 2015 & 2016 King of the West crown with Carson Macedo and Kyle Hirst behind the wheel, respectively.  Golobic will be chasing his first.  Paul Baines is running the show on race nights. … Colby Copeland will be the new lead foot in the Larry Antaya Motorsports Maxim this season.  Trevor Canales will handle the wrenches. This should be a fun team to watch.  …  Let’s not forget about DJ Netto who has moved back into the Netto Family sprinter.  DJ posted the most top 10 finishes during 2017 season.  No reason why that would be any different in ’18. … By the way, if you’re still looking to put a talented driver in your seat, this corner highly recommends Geoff Ensign and Ryan Bernal. … Who is your early season favorite to claim this seasons King of the West-NARC title?

GENERAL MEETING:  The King of the West Series – presented by the Northern Auto Racing Club, will be holding our annual General Membership/Competition Meeting on Saturday, February 24th.  It will be hosted by Roth Motorsports in their Motorsports Compound at 4630 S. Fig Avenue, Fresno, CA 93706.  We get started at 11:00 a.m. and will be serving some killer barbecue by 1:00 p.m.  So we have everyone covered on food, please RSVP by texting 714-397-7417, or call 408-371-3031 for more info.

Stay tuned for some new sponsor news in the next few weeks.  This is shaping up to be an excellent season!  Coming to you live from Auburn, CA, see ya!

The championship trophies are one of a kind!