Last Saturday night was the final date on the Havasu 95 Speedway's 2008-2009 winter racing schedule. Since last fall the quarter mile paved oval, located in Lake Havasu City-Arizona, had been treating their fans to high quality ASA sanctioned racing. Track promoters Dennis Rudin and Bill Rozhon wanted to go out with a bang. They wanted to stage a season ending finale that fans would be talking about for serveral days. That line of thought led to "The Night Of Destruction." On race day morning Rudin's cell phone began ringing as in O dawn thirty. The calls were coming from race fans who wanted to reserve tickets for the special night. The fans were not disappointed.
This special night featured waterless boat racing, a demolition derby, a factory stock enduro and an all American fireworks show. All through the evening there was crashing, smashing, burning and every form of motorized mayhem that you could name. The full capacity crowd spent the entire night roaring their approval. But in the midst of all this everyone was reminded of the importance of Memorial Day and there were fitting tributes to the members of our Armed Forces. This special evening was made possible by two of the Havasu 95 Speedway's long time supporters: the Anderson Auto Group and Walt's Motorsports and Marine.
The waterless boat race was simply amazing. It featured stock cars pulling boats, sans trailers, around the track. The intent is to ram an opponent's boat in an effort to dislodge it from the car. If a driver lost his boat it didn't mean he was out of the race. The driver could pick up a stranded boat lying on the track, push it with his front bumper and keep going. There were plenty of smashed and shrerred boats lying on the track to choose from. Just to make things a little more interesting the pyrotechnic crew, who treated the fans to the fireworks show, set off fire bombs set up on the backstretch wall all during this race.
This waterless boat race did not observe the traditional oval racing format. It was not about who passed whom or who was the race leader. The traditional prescribed ammount of laps was replaced with a time limit. Making things even more interesting was the fact that the winner was decided by audience approval and that was scientifically measured by a decibel meter.
The race also had a couple of guest celebrities.Matt Kutcher is a well known special effects supervisor within the Hollywood film industry. The name might not be familiar but movie fans around the world have literally jumped out of their seats while watching Kutcher's very scary effects in films such as "Righteous Kill," "Snakes On A Plane" and his current project "Piranha 3D."
Kutcher was driving a specially prepared police car complete with the lights on the roof. He also had a team mate inside of the car with him. It was Bill Goldberg. The former WWF/WCW professional wrestling champion is now the host of the extremely popular reality action TV show "Bullrun" aired on the Speed Channel. Both wrestling and car fans were delighted to see him and he was only to happy to meet and greet the fans.
When the green flag fell on the waterless boat race the mayhem immeadiately began. You could easily hear the smashing and crunching sounds of destroyed boats above the roar of the crowd. There were two red flags during the course of this event. The first ocurred when a car actually landed on top of a wrecked boat in the middle of the frontstretch. The red flag was needed to dislodge the car.
The second red flag involved an engine fire in Andy Anderson's car and the young Lake Havasu City native deserves an honorable mention for his crowd pleasing performance during this event. Anderson's boat was seperated from his car early in the event. However he kept picking up wrecked boats with his front bumper to keep himself in the race. Then his right front tire went down and eventually left the car all together. Anderson continued to push boats while riding on a right front metal rim that sent sparks high into the air. Unfortunately some of those sparks ignited the engine and the race had to be stopped. Anderson climbed out of his car and through the thick plume of smoke you could see him jumping up and down on the car's roof while waving to the fans. The fans immeadiately showed their approval for the effort.
Once the time limit ran out it was time for the spectators to pick their winner. To no real surprise the decibel meter said that Kutcher and Goldberg were the winners. Local drivers Bobby Keirns and Shelby Orozco were awarded second.
In victory lane Goldberg said "I really had a great time. But let's not forget that Matt did a great job with the driving. I was just the passenger." Referring to Memorial Day and the members of the Armed Forces, Goldberg asked the fans to please remember one of the important reason why everyone was gathered at the speedway on this night. He concluded by saying "this was great, we should do this damn thing each and every year."
The Havasu 95 Speedway's Factory Stock program is a major reason why they sell so many tickets on a Saturday night. This entry level into stock car racing just wows the fans with their fender smashing style of racing. The Havasu 95 Speedway's Factory Stock Division has one of the best car counts in the western states. Due to the extremely stock engines in the cars, the division normally runs a trophy dash, heat races and a 12 lap main. But this was "The Night Of Destruction" and the fans were buzzing with excitement over the thought of this division running a 50 lap enduro race.
19 starter took the initial green flag and it appeared the "O C Bob" Berwick was going to be the man to beat. But this is Factory Stock racing and anything can happen. Berwick found himself caught up in a lap 37 two car crash on the backstretch and the race leader was through for the night.
Fan favorite "Jumbo" John Thorpe took over the point but he had his rear view mirror filled with the presence of Scott Allen. After several laps of hard racing, the presence of lapped traffic allowed Allen to pass Thorpe with just four laps left in the race. In a sheer note of irony, lapped traffic allowed Thorpe to pull alongside the side of Allen's car and that allowed him to make the race winning move on the white flag lap. Jack Snell followed the two race leaders under the checkers to take third.
The Havasu 95 Speedway's "Night Of Destruction" also included the smash and dash for cash known as a demolition derby. From the initial green flag the hits were fast and furious. This form of motorsports is all about the last man standing. That man was Las Vegas-Nevada's Billy Graser a member of a travelling demolition derby team know as The Bomber Nation. Graser took home $800 for his winning effort.
The Havasu 95 Speedway's special events staff, led by Eden Rudin, always comes up with a fun and innovative idea to entertain the fans during intermission and this night was no different. In fact it was very special because the intermission was a fund raiser for the Patrick Tenille Memorial Skateboard Park that will be constructed in Sara Park where the race track is located.
Patrick Tenille was a young local resident who proudly served his country in the armed forces. That service included a tour in Iraq. Tragically the brave young man turned out to be an American casuality. His family and friends wante to do something very special to honor his memory. Prior to his enlistment Tenille was an avid fan and participant of BMX freestyle bycycle riding. The plan is to construct a facility where young people can do free style riding and skate boarding. The fund raising efforts have been on going for quite awhile now and it was reported Saturday night that the facility is very close to a ground breaking ceremony.
The special events staff rolled out a Ford Crown Victoria onto the speedway. The fans purchased tickets for the right to smash this car with a sledge hammer. Bill Goldberg along with the locally owned Big O Tires and the Mojave Bank made substantial donations and passed the tickets to yongsters in the grandstand so they could join in on the fun. It was just another example of how this speedway works and why it's so special.
At the conclusion of the exciting evening, the fans left the speedway with big smiles on their faces while wondering what the promters were going to come up with to top this evening. The first order of business will be to clean up the race track. That will not be easy because the track was completely with sheet metal, car parts and fiberglass panels from what used to be boats. Once the clean up is done then promoters Dennis Rudin and Bill Rozhon can take some well deserved vacation time. Then they'll put their heads together to create some motorsports magic for the 2009-2010 winter racing season at the Havasu 95 Speedway.
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