On July 28th the original schedule (PDF) shows dirt mods, super stocks, hobby's, dwarf's, mini trux, "SPORT MODS", V hardtops and 4 banger's racing this night. If you click on the calender for the 28th it shows wingless sprints, hobby stocks, dwarf's and the three BCRA classes running on this night. Which is it???

I'm sure they re-did the schedule and it is the BCRA program.  I had fun racing my sport mod there two times before in this season and was really looking forward to this July 28th to run again!!!

Boy!!, did we make a huge mistake buying a sport mod. After leaving pavement sprint cars because of it's cost ($$) factor, we decided to give dirt a try again after a 8 year hiatus from it. We were really hyped by many people into believing the sport mods were going to be a popular class with big car counts and all the local tracks having them on their schedule.

What a big bust and joke that turned out to be!!!! Other than Hanford and Bakersfield this class is pretty much dead and the local tracks around central Calif. have pretty much shoved them aside.

Chowchilla has anounced they will be closed for the month of July to reorganize so they can come up with a solution for the low car count. They plan on reopening in August with this new plan. Personally I think it's a phony cover-up and they have no intent on reopening it JMO. Only time will tell if I'm right or wrong.

Watsonville, Hanford and Bakersfield are too far away > too much  $$ in tow and motel expenditures. Even Petaluma who used to have sport mods on their schedule in the begining have since canceled all the sport mod dates at their track.

That only leaves Merced which has only a sparse schedule for Sport Mods and on top of that they have decided to change the races from Friday nights to Sunday "days" during the hottest part of the day. Merced's temperatures during the month's of July, Aug. and Sept. consistently average around the high 90's and 100 degree mark. That place inevitably will turn into a dust bowl with many overheated engines. Brilliant !!!

I think the car counts at antioch will pick up a bit next season.
So Ron, does that mean sport mods run everytime the a mods do?

fight2thefinishracing wrote on 07/11/12 at 1:05pm:


Yes sir.

I think Bakersfield and Hanford are doing well with sport mod car counts because they went IMCA. Once Bakersfield announced that they would be sanctioned, that gave everybody some re-assurance that the class would ne consistans and also gave these guys the option to run for more that a make shift track championship aginst 5 other drivers.

the foot 12 wrote on 07/14/12 at 3:07pm:


Hi Jimmy,

Pretty expensive racing, isn't it?  We're right there with you. We paid $100 for membership to Oval Motorsport, Inc (Antioch/Merced) and got a total of 4 races between their two tracks. Merced closed for the month of June and then moved the races to Sundays during the heat of the day. I wonder how many cars they will get? I don't think Merced will last out this a month.

Then Chowchilla mandatorily takes $90 from us for IMCA membership and we get only 4 races from that track before it closes for this month (July). They say their going to reopen in August, but I don't think so especially after I've been told by someone who lives in the area that they have taken all of their equipment out of there.

I'll do the math for the cost for "7" races we have raced this year. Membership fees > $190. Entry fees for pit crew and driver > $710. Total > $900, minus $175 for payouts. This means Thomas payed $725 for only seven races and now on top of that, there is no local "dirt" track to race at anymore.

What bothers us the most about all of this is the darned "membership fees". You know Thomas is paying for all of this while going to college and working at a pizza joiint for $10 an hour. Between IMCA and Oval Motorsports, they have taken $190 dollars from him then basically close up the tracks. At $10 an hour that equals to around 24 hours (3 days) of work for him to pay these membership fees. To us this is no less than a form thievery.

Well Jimmy, the good news is promoter Kenny Shepard at the Madera track has open arms to all sport mods who would like to try their hand at pavement racing. He has an excellent program set in place for the sport mods and this past Friday he let the sport mods practice for free. We practiced and had a great time. Kenny told me he was going to let the sport mods again practice for free this Friday (July 20th) for the big race on the the 28th, but just to make sure I heard him right I'm going to call him to confirm this.

Jimmy, if it not too long of a drive, you should try to make it. He has 4 more races (maybe more) on the schedule this year and he told me if he gets enough guys to commit to next year he would make the Sport Mods his premier class for his weekly series of racing.

Check out the posts on the SPORT MODS heading and read the the threads on "Madera race" post. It will give you some more information.

Anyway, sorry to hear about your traffic accident and apparently I would assume that everybody in your family is OK and that is the best news to hear. Hope to see you soon.

Take care,
Jim and Thomas

no offence guys  but your first mistake was trusting john soares who is the most inconsistent promotor over the past ten years