Twenty of the fastest cars in Western Canada will be in Williams Lake this Saturday when Thunder Mountain Speedway hosts its season opener at the local race track.
Thunder Mountain Speedway president Tim Westwick said the local race club is excited to host the ASA OK Tire Sportsman Series Presented by Advance Testing.
The season opener at Thunder Mountain will include a 100-lap main event featuring the sportsman series cars.
Williams Lake residents Korbin Thomas — a three time champion in the series — and Ryley Seibert are both in the field for Saturday night’s event.
“What they did was they combined two series to form one governing body in Western Canada, and they formed the ASA OK Tire Sportsman Series from the ASA and ARCA West series,” Westwick said.
In addition to that the event will feature all of the local car club classes including a newly formed street stock division (the thunder division and street stock division from previous years have been combined), the bone stock division and the pro-mini division.
“We’re really excited as far as the local club goes,” said Westwick who, in past years, has raced in the thunder class. “We have commitments from a minimum of eight street stock drivers for opening day. With our pro-minis, we’ve got at least six of them, so our car counts are looking good and we’re excited about that.”
The Lakers Car Club and all of the cars entered in this year’s Lakers Car Club Show and Shine will also be making a cameo appearance during the intermission of Saturday’s races. As part of its weekend’s festivities car club entrants will be showing off their rides on the race track.
“Last year we were two cars wide all the way around the track and he [Wayne Potter, president of the Lakers Car Club] thinks they’re going to be three wide this year.”
The Williams Lake Dry Grad Committee will also be at the track selling tickets for its dry grad truck raffle, plus selling 50/50 tickets.
Westwick, too, will be taking part in the action as he’s moved up to the street stock division for this year’s season.
“I’ve built a whole new car and I’m moving up,” he said. “I’m excited. I’ve pretty much been waiting my whole life to build this car.”
The action gets underway at 5 p.m. with qualifying laps. Racing is slated to begin at 6 p.m.
Westwick also said the club is looking for volunteers to help out with a variety of tasks around the track this season.
“We need volunteers with our track truck, and people to help with just about anything,” he said.
If anyone is interested in volunteering contact Westwick at either 250-305-4490 or westwick11@hotmail.com.
