ONE-ON-ONE WITH: LANCE HALLMARK

Source: Andrew Kunas
Date: 06/30/2005

Saturday, June 4 I went one-on-one with midget racer Lance Hallmark at Sunset Speedway in Banks, Oregon. Hallmark competes with the Oregon-based Northern Outlaw Midget Association, a series that is in its toddler years, having started in 2003.

Hallmark earlier in the evening won his first trophy dash in NOMA competition and also posted a pair of top-five finishes in the main events, the first of which was made up from the weekend before when curfew forced Sunset Speedway to postpone the NOMA feature.

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Andrew Kunas: Lance, first off, congratulations on you first trophy dash. How many years have you been running with NOMA now?

Lance Hallmark: This is our second full year. This is NOMA’s third season.

AK: I understand you used to run micro and mini-sprints?

LH: Yeah, I ran a 1200cc mini-sprint all the time. I did start out in 1988, in what they called the 500cc modifieds, at Deming Speedway way back when. We finished fifth in points that year. My dad and I both raced that year. After that, I kind of drove here and there for different people. When I got old enough….shoot, I was only 16 back then, I got my own car. We did some off-roading too. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Black Sheep Motorsports, from up in Bellingham (Washington). It was an economy off-road series and we won the championship in that. My dad also won it one year – I was rookie of the year the same year he won it. I should’ve brought the picture…you would’ve loved it. It was Mazda GLC’s with a basic roll cage in it and you either had suspension or no suspension. We won the 2002 Oregon mini-sprint championship. We also won the only Portland race in 2001. I hold that as a pretty cherishable win to me because that’s the only mini-sprint win anyone’s going to get there and the only mini-sprint race there ever. (Portland Speedway closed after the 2001 season).

AK: You ran the 1200cc on the quarter-mile? (Portland also had a half-mile track)

LH: 1200cc on the quarter-mile. They also had the IMCA modifieds there…I guess you could say it was there regular show cars. It was their main attraction, at “Fast Friday’s at the Bud Bowl”; I guess that’s what they called it. They were running 15 seconds laps, and they thought that was fast. (Then) we came with the mini-sprints and ran 12 second laps. (Laughs)

AK: What made you decide to get into midget racing?

LH: I like the mini-sprint stuff. My father moved out of Bellingham – my family is all up in Bellingham. We were racing the mini-sprint up there all the time at Deming Speedway and doing pretty decent. Then he (his father) moved back to Alaska. Down here, I kind of knew about (NOMA) while I was running the Oregon Mini-Sprint Association in 2002 – They were (at the time), kicking the idea around, and I didn’t know it was going to take off. At the beginning of 2004, I had the mini-sprint all re-done, frame up. I was going to race it, but I sold it last January (2004) when I heard of NOMA. They were getting this going and they were going to race at Sunset, racing at Cottage Grove, race at Madras, some tracks that we’ve been pretty successful on with a mini-sprint, and we stayed closer to home – and that was a big factor.

AK: Sprint cars and midgets, it’s well documented: They are very expensive to run. How expensive is the whole program for your midget?

LH: The NOMA midget is really comparable to a 1200cc mini-sprint. 1200cc mini-sprint, top of the line stuff; you’re talking about probably ten, fifteen grand, brand new. Then the midget, with my pit cart, my trailer, my car and spares I’ve got…I’ve put more than twelve grand into my NOMA midget. You know, I could buy a sprint car fairly cheap; the motors are where it starts getting expensive. NOMA’s rules say we’ve gotta use all older 80’s stuff; Volkswagen, type one motors. They all have to be all cast iron block. No top of the line midget stuff.

AK: This all designed to keep costs down some?

LH: Yeah, definitely. A lot of guys out here, they’re running the second hand stuff. It’s pretty cheap and easy to find out there. Definitely the motor cost (to keep down). There’s rules we’ve got set up in NOMA, definitely keep (down) the costs of this class of midgets, called the sportsman midgets. They have those out on the east coast. We’re pretty competitive.

AK: Two years ago, when NOMA started, they only had four or five cars out here. Two years later you have 14 here tonight, and you actually have 19 registered (with NOMA). Where do you see the car count going by the end of the year, as far as cars actually at the track competing?

LH: We have 14 now. I can see 18 here locally (Sunset). A lot of the guys don’t want to travel and go down to Madras or to Cottage Grove. Well, a lot of guys do go down to Cottage Grove because it’s a straight shot down; you don’t have to go over any mountains or anything. I’m hoping for 18, 19 cars by the end of the year, out here racing.

AK: I understand you couldn’t able to make the (April 30th) race at Medford (Southern Oregon Speedway)?

LH: Yeah, we had everything ready, ready to rock and roll. I was on the fence. As you know, we watch the weather all the time here. It’d cost me $400 gas just to run there and back. It was going to rain – It wasn’t going to rain. It was a 50 percent chance, and the rain was coming. Friday, I went to Aloha to give some gears back to A.J. (Tipton) and it was raining there, and I made the decision to stay home.

AK: You mentioned that some of the drivers don’t want to travel. What are the chances of NOMA doing some more traveling still, going to Madras, Cottage Grove, and Medford more or even heading up into Washington?

LH: I hope that happens. I’m game to go to Washington. I’m game to go to Elma. I’m game to go somewhere like Skagit. I’m game for travel, as long as it’s not early in the year – like April – it’s really iffy around here in the Northwest; it’s usually raining here.

AK: This off-season, Sunset Speedway underwent a major renovation. They enlarged the track here, going from a small ¼ to a large ¼. What is the track like now, compared to last year?

LH: I think it’s still the same. It seems like we had good luck here off and on, but it always seemed like I couldn’t get the car to handle right to my like liking until this year. Tonight, we ran both our features and we were able to get the car to hook up. I don’t know if it was because it was a new car last year. I definitely like the new configuration. It’s still flat, but we were able to navigate up high or down low. People were saying they weren’t able to go down low in turns one and two. If you dive it in the corner a little bit better and don’t run it in too deep, you could definitely run that corner fast. It’s real nice and smooth. It’s a little wider, but you could run real low and keep your momentum. I don’t really see much difference. If there was more banking, I think it would be a huge difference and there would be more lines to run.

AK: Before we wrap up, is there anything you’d like to say?

LH: I hope by the end of the year we’re close to a new championship. We keep being consistent like we did tonight, keep luck on our side, and get a couple of firsts this year. We’ve got a good competitive group. You know Steve Dickenson and A.J. Tipton. They’re our top two contenders. I’m sure as more NOMA guys get their feet wet, they’ll be more competitive. We kind of got an advantage because we’ve run a couple of years and we know what our car is doing. A lot of the guys are brand new out here.

Northern Outlaw Midget Association www.nomamidgets . com

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