Hoseheads Sprint Car Photos & News

All is right with my world again! After a 2006 marked by an unusual season-long silence, the hills and canyons surrounding New Mexico’s Hollywood Hills Speedway have been filled with the sounds of non-wing sprint cars doing what they do best. Since the track’s grand re-opening on May 5^th, New Mexico’s non-wing sprint cars have raced six times at the 3/8^th high-banked oval and are at the halfway point of what has turned out to be a very competitive 2007 season. While the main focus of this “Southwest Sideways” column will be on the remainder of the 2007 season at Hollywood Hills Speedway, I hope to cover as much of the sprint car action in the southwest as I can from my base here in northern New Mexico.

Going back in the time machine to the fall of 2006, former New Mexico sprint car racers turned promoters Bobby Seals and Butch Box took over the reigns of Hollywood Hills with the goal of helping the Pueblo of San Felipe realize the true potential of the speedway, which first opened in 2002 and is considered one of the finest short-track facilities in the Southwest, featuring state of the art lighting and sound systems, a paved pit area, and a grandstand capable of seating 10,000. Seals and Box, operating as B&B Productions, trucked in over 60 loads of fresh clay during the winter to get the 3/8^th high-banked oval, which had been dark for the entire 2006 season, ready for the May 2007 season opener.

Fast forward to May 2007. After several practice days in April indicated that the reworked track would lend itself perfectly to the back-it-in racing of New Mexico’s non-wing sprint cars, a good field of 24 cars filled the pits for the grand re-opening night on May 5^th. In order to attract as many of the southwest’s non-wing sprint cars as possible, Hollywood Hills is using engine rules that let 410 powered cars to race alongside 360’s with the use of an injector insert to equalize horsepower. This allows the cars of the New Mexico Motor Racing Association, the long-time non-wing sprint car club that has an unlimited engine displacement rule, to run regularly at Hollywood Hills without having to downsize to a 360 cubic inches motor. Taking the victory on opening night was former World of Outlaws regular and non-wing racer extraordinaire Johnny Herrera, who has spent the last three years terrorizing the southwest in father Joe Herrera’s potent #45x machine.

The non-wing sprint cars have raced five more times at Hollywood Hills since opening night, with Herrera also taking the checkers the other two times he has appeared at the track. Herrera, given his immense quantities of talent and experience, is certainly not one to become typecast as “just” a non-wing sprint car driver, and has been beating up on the winged sprint car competition in the southwest this season as well, claiming four of the six races so far in the Sprint Car Owners of Arizona 2007 season at various tracks across the southwest. Aside from Herrera, the other big winner at Hollywood Hills has been Jesse Baker, the son of long-time New Mexico racer Bo Baker and a regular winged sprint car competitor who has seemingly made an easy transition to non-wing sprint cars. Baker has taken two features this season, and along with his dad has been near or on top of the point standings all season long. The 2005 New Mexico Motor Racing Association champion Kelly Denison used his rim-riding style to score the other feature victory back in mid-June.

One of the big questions I had at the start of the season was the car count. Starting with the opening of the track in 2002 and continuing through the 2004 season, Hollywood Hills had been successful in attracting non-wing sprint cars from across New Mexico and from the surrounding states of Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and Kansas. The track hosted several shows of USAC’s now-defunct southwest sprint car series back in 2002 and 2003, and with the 2004 closure of Albuquerque’s Duke City Raceway became the home track for the New Mexico Motor Racing Association. In addition, the track hosted several events of the SCRA’s non-wing world championship with a single show in 2003 and two shows in 2004 in what turned out to be SCRA’s final season under Ron Shuman. It was a thrill to watch Richard Griffin, Mike Kirby, Damion Gardner, Rickie Gaunt, Charles Davis, Jr., Jeremy Sherman and the rest of the SCRA travelers at Hollywood Hills as they passed through on their way to or from the midwest.

At the time it seemed like Hollywood Hills had made the case to be included in the discussion with Manzanita and Perris as one of the hubs of non-wing sprint car racing in the west. But a very late start to what would be an abbreviated 2005 season and the cancellation of 2006 erased all of the momentum that the track had gained and left me wondering exactly who and how many non-winged sprint cars would be in the pits come opening day in May. To bring Hollywood Hills back to life and to add stability to a track that badly needed it, new promoters Bobby Seals and Butch Box made the decision to operate on a weekly basis instead of the special show approach that had been followed in years past, with the non-wing sprint cars trading the weekly headlining spot with the IMCA modifieds on the 2007 schedule.

Indeed, while the season’s races so far have been short on the long-distance travelers from Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and Texas, the New Mexico non-wing sprint car contingent has answered the call and put about 20 to 25 cars in the pits for most of the races. In addition to feature winners Herrera, the Bakers, and Denison, the field has been a diverse and interesting mix of drivers that includes many-time New Mexico Motor Racing Association champion and former F-16 fighter pilot Tom Ball, International Hot Boat Association President and former drag boat racer Charlie Fegan, and a number of veterans of the New Mexico sprint car wars such as Rick Johnson, Scott Box, Tim West, Russ Gossett, and Larry Stoerkel. Jon Taylor, Jason Tanner, Ronnie Smith, and JC Powell have been consistently fast all season, and mini-sprint graduate Derrik Ortega has paced a strong field of rookies that also includes Colt Treharn and Cody Mansfield. And last but not least, in something akin to Roush Racing in NASCAR, on some nights nearly a fifth of the field can be linked to car owner/crew chief/mechanic extraordinaire Truman West, who has his hands involved on the cars of Jody Williams and Dave Burns as well as owning those of Tim West and Cody Mansfield.

On a final note, 1999 NMMRA champion Jason Tanner suffered third degree burns at a NMMRA show in Dodge City, Kansas back in July. Jason was leading the feature event with two laps to go when a ruptured fuel line caused serious injuries to his left leg and right hand. Jason spent three weeks in the University of New Mexico Hospital for treatment for his burns, and after several skin grafts was released to go home last Sunday. Needless to say, Jason still faces a long road to recovery but his spirits are very high and he intends to be at Hollywood Hills tonight to watch the non-wing sprint car action, and car owner Bill Richards reports that Jason will be back in a non-wing sprint car at full speed for the 2008 season.

Jason is a fan-favorite at Hollywood Hills who is always one of the first to search for the cushion and the fastest groove around the track, and his absence has been felt in the stands and in the pits. The New Mexico racing community has established a fund at Wells Fargo Bank (account #3891010260) to help Jason with his uncovered medical expenses and lost time from work. See Jason’s website at http://www.justracinllc.com for more information or contact Bill Richards at brichards49@comcast.net.

Comments, input, and feedback are always appreciated at kenneth.adkins@comcast.net. See you at the track!

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