Salt Lake City, Utah -- The stands were packed Monday night to witness the wildest event of the season at Rocky Mountains Raceways as they watched the Doomsday Trailer Races.
“The trailers are awesome!” said Scott Yeates of Bountiful. Yeates, age 10, and his family come every year to the Doomsday Trailer Races at Rocky Mountain Raceways.
The Trailer Races are a demolition race where trucks strap on trailers and run around the track in a figure eight and try to knock off the other racers trailers. The race is through when there is only one trailer still left on the back of a truck.
“We’ve been here for the past three years and just love them. At the end of the race it the track looks like a tornado hit a trailer park,” said Scott’s father Ben Yeates.
Before all of the wreckage at the end of the night, the fans enjoyed the “real racing”, as one fan called it.
Chuck Groat of Kearns broke the track record in the Ford Focus Midget class during his qualifying with a time of 15.195 seconds passing the previous record of 15.250 set in July of this year.
“We had the motor out and the rear of the car out this morning and were putting bolts and pieces back on the car when we went out to qualify. It was amazing that we even got the car out there,” Groat said.
In the final points race of the season in the Maverik Modified class Michael Hale picked up enough points to secure the season championship.
“I am just so relieved to have won. After racing in this class for 12 years and coming close so many times, I am just so glad to have won,” said Hale.
Hale didn’t win a main event or even a heat race throughout the season but was consistent enough all year long to stay at the top of the points for most of the year.
The Maverik Modifieds is easily the toughest class at RMR.
“This class is just so competitive, so close. It is so tight that it is so difficult to get up to the front consistently,” Hale said.
Mark Ith and Dan McCoy were able to get to the front of the pack during the Maverik Modified main race and showed the fans some good hard racing.
McCoy, who started the race fifth, and Ith, who started in twelfth, were one and two respectively at lap 18 of the 50 lap race. For the next fourteen laps they were neck and neck with McCoy holding off Ith until lap 32 when Ith started to pass McCoy on the outside then went inside on the back straightaway to pass him.
Ith broke away from McCoy and the rest of the pack over the next 16 laps but with two laps to go the #41 car of Michael Haddenham spun out and caused a yellow flag with a restart. The last two laps were exciting with Ith holding off McCoy to win the race.
“We had a blast out there tonight,” Ith said.
Complementing his crew Ith said, “It is really easy to race when the car is set up perfectly.”
Other classes that ran tonight included the Mini Cups and Legends.
The night’s winners included Ith, Zac Atkinson (Mini Cups), Brandon Snow (Legends) and Kipp Posey (Focus Midgets).
In addition to oval racing, Rocky Mountain Raceways hosts drag racing, motocross racing, monster trucks and drifting.
Rocky Mountain Raceways next events include the Street Legal Series (September 11) and Tint & Accessories Midnight Drags (September 11).
The Torch 100 on Saturday, September 12 will be Rocky Mountain Raceways final oval race for the 2009 season.
