Saturday night, when the ASA Speed Truck Challenge makes another visit to Orange Show Speedway, fans will have a chance to get paid taking off their pants – and putting on skirts.
It will be “Skirt Night” for the track at the National Orange Show Events Center, and anyone who shows up wearing a skirt will be admitted for half price. That means $5 for adults and $1 for children 6-12. Children 5 and under already get in free, so what they wear won’t make any difference.
Whether the men who wear skirts choose to shave their legs or not is irrelevant, too, although failing to do so could prove to be a handicap during a “fashion show” in which cash prizes will be awarded based on voting by the fans.
That will happen during a racing program that features four of the speedway’s regular divisions – ASA Modifieds, ASA Street Stocks, Pro 4’s and Sport Compacts – in addition to the touring Speed Truck Challenge, which will close the show with a 100–lap main event that will be taped for broadcasting by the Outdoor Life Network at a later date.
This will be the last of three races on the quarter-mile oval for the Speed Trucks and points leader Darren Young, of Gilbert, Ariz., will be trying for a sweep. Young won on April 8, with Mira Loma’s Scott Dodd second, and made it two in a row July 1, when he was followed home by teammate and perennial champion Lee Hatch, of Fontana.
Young has won the series’ past two races, four of the past five and five of eight overall. He leads Hatch by 34 points and Dodd by 36 with four races remaining.
Saturday’s races will be the next-to-last of the season for both the ASA Modifieds and Pro 4’s, and in both there are runaway points leaders.
Michael Jackson, of Bonita, has won once and finished in the top five in all eight races to build a 368-324 lead over Corona’s Jason Patison in the ASA Modified class, which reportedly has at least a half-dozen new entries on the way for 2007.
Don Minut, of Riverside, has five wins and two runner-up finishes in the seven Pro-4 races and leads Kendall Scheidecker, 346-302, with this race and the Sept. 30 finale remaining.
There still are a few contenders for the titles in the ASA Street Stock and Sport Compact classes, which each have three races left on the schedule. Big Bear’s Johnny Russo leads Big Bear neighbor Cliff Conklin by eight points and Riverside’s Ted Reich by 12 in the Street Stock division and Fontana’s Jim Holland has a 10-point advantage over rookie Gerritt Hodge, of Moreno Valley, in the Sport Compact class.
Admission for those not choosing to wear skirts is $10 for adults and $2 for children 6 through 12. Parking is $4, with the entrance off Mill Street at Gate 3.
Spectator gates will open at 5 p.m. with heat races getting under way at approximately 6 p.m. and opening ceremonies at 6:30 p.m.
There will be activity at the speedway on Friday as well. A Speed Truck practice session from 4:30 to 7 p.m. will precede the Firestone Burn-Out Contest that is an annual highlight of the Route 66 Rendezvous. There are Monster Truck exhibition races on the schedule as well. The Burn-Out Contest is open to the public, but limited to 100 entries.
Tickets for the Burn-Out Contest and Monster Truck show are $6, with children 10 and under free. Gates will open at 5 p.m
