Casper Speedway, the ½-mile dirt oval based in Casper, WY, has a new management team for the 2021 season. Casper Mountain Racers Association has signed a three-year lease (with the option to renew) with the city of Casper, the current owners of the facility.
Headed by the new track president and promoter, Chris McAuley, the group also includes five other board members: Jerry Chavez (vice president), Dalene Asmus (secretary), Danielle Reed (treasurer), Mike Oakley (marketing), and Benji Bayne (member/liaison). The association will run the facility as a non-profit, which means all revenue goes back into running the race track.
“Being a non-profit means that it’s for the racers, by the racers. Anything that comes in will help support our local racing community and hopefully help it grow bigger,” McAuley said. “[This is] alongside helping to improve the track to where we have people from other states that want to compete here just because of the facility. [We want] to give our guys the option to race against people they usually don’t to be a little more competitive.“
Plans for the track include introducing wingless sprint cars for the first time on Sunday, June 13. The event will be headlined by the ASCS Elite Non-Wing Sprint Car Series and also feature Mini Stocks, WISSOTA Midwest Mods, WISSOTA Mod Fours, and Non-Winged 360 Sprints.
“I think we’ve got seven or eight local racers here in town that will take their wings off their car just to race,” McAuley says.
The special event will be followed by a winged sprint car race on Friday, June 18, featuring the ASCS Frontier Region Winged 360 Sprints.
“We’re bringing back essentially the same cars but with wings on them. We’ll have back-to-back sprint races,” McAuley said about the race, which will also feature the Rocky Mountain Hard Tops, WISSOTA Mod Fours, WISSOTA Midwest Mods, and IMCA Hobby Stocks. “Wing racing is growing in the region, and more and more people are slowly getting into it.”
Renovations are set to take place after the season closes this August. Plans include a new track surface, which involves tearing the current track up, moving walls, and dumping nearly 200 truckloads of clay, which is about 30 tons per load.
“Our last race is July 30. Starting in August, we start ripping up the track,” McAuley said.
Management has also announced changes to its staff, including the appointment of JR Mechanics’ Jordan Farley as the 2021 head tech inspector. His primary duty will be “the safety of the cars, making sure it won’t put the driver or others in harm’s way,” along with the enforcement of sanctioning body rules for specific classes.
The season opener is set for May 1, and will feature Mini Stocks, Dwarfs, Rocky Mountain Hard Tops, WISSOTA Midwest Mods, WISSOTA Mod Fours, IMCA Modifieds, and IMCA Hobby Stocks. Standout events in 2021 also include the High Plains Late Model Series Bob Schierkolk Memorial Race on Sunday, July 25, followed by the championship night on July 31.
For more information: facebook.com/cspeedway/. For the 2021 schedule: casperspeedway.myracepass.com/schedule/.