Ron Bennett
For The New Era
After a dozen weekends of cloudy, threatening skies, Summer has officially arrived in Oregon?s Willamette Valley. With a seven-day forecast of 80-plus weather there should be a great turnout at Friday night?s Bud I-5 opener at Cottage Grove Speedway.
In 2003, the Lane County zoning commission was threatening to close the 48 year old speedway which led to the cancellation of many of the speedway?s special events, including the two Bud I-5 dates on their 2003 schedule.
The opening race of the 2002 Bud I-5 season was at Cottage Grove on Friday night May 10. Tom Halter of Bend, Oregon topped a 56-car field when he qualified at a blistering 13.226. Darren Coffell was second quick with a 13.227. Coffell won the Fast Four Trophy Dash. The fastest 16 qualifiers were fully reversed for the 40 lap feature, with B-Main transfer Jody Tanner starting on the rear. All of the ?Sweet 16? had timed in the 13 second bracket. The now-retired Murray Sim had beaten a disappointed Rob Mayea by 52-hundredths of a second for the 16th starting spot. The fastest and the slowest cars in the feature were separated by .698 of a second. Bob Boyd started 3 spots (12th) ahead of Coffell (15th) and at the end of 40 laps it was Boyd, 9th starting-Trevor Glaser and Darren Coffell on the podium.
A short tow up I-5 found the Bud I-5 tour at Willamette Speedway for round #2 of the 2002 season. 112 cars turned out and Darren Coffell turned in a 14.575 lap on the third-mile clay oval to grab fast time. Bob Boyd beat out Coffell, Jayme Van and Gene Day in the Fast Four Trophy Dash. B-Main transfer Tim Goodwin tagged the fully reversed ?Sweet 16? and the 40-lap feature was ready to go. The final laps of the feature saw Boyd catch Greg Walters who had taken the lead on lap 13. The last 15 laps of the race saw Boyd searching high and low for a pass as the laps ran out and Walters took a car length win over Boyd and veteran Terry Bentley of Sweet Home, Oregon who recently retired after 35 years of racing stock cars.
The 2004 Bud I-5 Challenge Series races on 4 of the Northwest?s finest dirt tracks.
All are located within minutes of I-5 and all are well-kept, fan-friendly facilities. Since the Cottage Grove and Lebanon tracks are about an hour apart, many fans set their campers or motor homes up at Willamette and car-pool down to the Grove for the Friday night shows and then return to Willamette to sleep and relax before the Saturday night running of the Bud I-5 events. The Medford track is about 3 1?2 hours south of Willamette and the Elma, Washington track is about three hours north.
Following this weekends Bud I-5 Challenge Series races at Cottage Grove and Lebanon, rounds 3 and 4 of the Bud Series will be on July 3rd and 4th at Willamette Speedway.
These same tracks also host the Northern Sprint Tour and the mid-July running of the NST Speedweek events. After racing at Medford on Monday night July 12 and at Cottage Grove on Tuesday night, many of the teams will spend the night at Willamette following the Wednesday night July 14 event before heading up to Elma for the 2-night Speedweek finale at the beautiful Grays Harbor Fairgrounds facility on July 16 and 17.
While the Oregon and Washington climate may be a bit on the soggy side during the first few months of the season, mid-June through September normally brings the warm days and cool nights that makes the Northwest a great place for racers and their many loyal fans.
For info or comments about Northwest racing the e-mail is [email protected].