Stock car racing returns to Portland this summer with the NASCAR Camping World West series scheduled to take to the Portland International Raceway road course July 18-19.
"The car’s getting new bodywork on it now and the engine should be finished and installed in a couple of weeks. It will be done right. It will be a first class race car, one we can win with."— Hershell McGriff
The Bi-Mart Salute to the Troops 125 NASCAR race will be the main event of a racing schedule that includes the late model Great American Stockcar Series (GASS) and historic NASCAR stockcars from the California-based Stock Car Racing Series (SCRS).
Tickets will be available on-line at PortlandNASCAR.com beginning April 29 and will be available soon at area Bi-Mart stores. The special advance price for the combined Saturday and Sunday is only $25, with children 12 and under admitted free. U.S. armed forces personnel with valid military I.D. will be admitted at no charge. Reservations are being taken now for motorhome and camping spaces.
The last time the big V-8 powered cars raced on the road course was 1986, when legendary Hershel McGriff took the che cker flag on his way to winning the season’s Winston West championship.
Although he “retired” from racing in 2003, McGriff says he plans to be back at the road course to defend his 23-year-old title as race champion.
He is currently working on a program to run all three road courses in the 2009 Camping World West schedule, beginning in mid-June at Infineon Raceway in California and ending at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah.
“The car’s getting new bodywork on it now and the engine should be finished and installed in a couple of weeks,” he said. “It will be done right. It will be a first class race car, one we can win with.”
The 2009 NASCAR Camping World West schedule includes 13 races ranging from short track bullrings to the high-speed Phoenix and Iowa Speedway ovals and the trio of road courses.
McGriff, named to a list of NASCAR’s top 50 drivers, is one of the racing legends to come out of the West Coast series. But he’s far from the only one. Many of NASCAR’s current stars – Greg Biffle, Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick among them – used the series as a steeping stone to rides in NASCAR’s top ranks.
Then known as Winston West, the touring cars raced the final laps on Portland Speedway’s half-mile paved oval. Minutes after the checker flag fell, jackhammers replaced racecars as the paved surface was torn up to become a dirt oval, and closed forever three years later.
McGriff competed in that event, and then sat along the front straight and autographed pieces of pavement for the fans.
“It’s going to be good to get back to Portland,” he said. “I’ve always like that road course and I’ve been able to do pretty well on it.”
