This was posted by Wes Boyd on the Spartan/Springport message board, I thought I'd share it.
I doubt that many regulars from Springport are readers of the Hudson Post-Gazette, so I thought I'd post this article I wrote for the paper:
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My wife and I have watched (and often slept through) any number of NASCAR races on TV. For all the years that MIS has been up there 20 miles away, we've never been up there for a race -- the crowds are too large, the traffic too bad, it's too expensive, and any number of other reasons, some good and some bad.
One day not long ago my wife happened to comment that she'd like to see a short-track race in the flesh some time. Now, in my younger days I used to go to short-track races a little, but that was a long time ago.
The weather looked like it might be promising last Saturday evening and I was in the mood to go out and do something when I remembered my wife's comment about seeing a race.
Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I was soon able to determine that there were Saturday night races up at Springport Motor Speedway, northwest of Jackson about half as far as Hudson is south. So, Saturday evening we ate dinner a little early and hit the road for Springport.
Springport Motor Speedway is located well out in the country down a slightly confusing series of narrow two-lane roads. Not having been there before I didn't know what to expect but was pleased to discover that it's a very neat and well-kept facility. The track is 3/8 of a mile and paved, which is to say that it's small enough that all the action is right in front of you but large enough to see some speed. It's not expensive -- $10 ticket prices for adults, $5 for kids.
There's a fairly large grandstand, which was only lightly filled on this beautiful summer evening. The crowd all seemed to be friendly and laid back. There were a few tables of souviners and memorabilia. There was a concession booth that made me wish I hadn't had dinner, since the chili dogs looked to be about the best I've seen since the demise of the Hudson Area Fair.
The racing was a lot of fun. The heat races were short -- only eight laps -- but they were started in reverse order of qualifying, so the action was furious from start to finish, even with as few as five cars per heat on the track. The features were mostly 20 laps, again started in reverse order but with a larger number of cars, so there was still plenty of room for action.
They normally run three classes of "stock" cars: Pony Stock, which is four cylinder cars like Dodge Neons and Chevy Cavaliers;' Pure Stock, which are the V-6 and V-8 version of Pony Stock, and Sportsman, which retain more or less stock bodies but with engines more souped up and racing tires. Last Saturday, there was another class, the Vintage Racers, which are classic hot rods with pre-1948 bodies and post-1948 straight sixes for engines. They're wierd looking but fast and exciting.
With the exception of the Vintage cars, which run at several different tracks over the summer, the racers are pretty much local people from like Lansing, Jackson and Albion, but they put on some good racing and obviously do it for the fun, since there isn't much money involved. Running a pony stock is not an expensive proposition; I'm told they change hands in ready to race condition for as low as $600.
The pony stocks are fun! They're fairly fast -- I'd say 90 or 100 MPH on the straights, and since most of them are driven by people that don't have a lot of racing experience, some of the cars look like they've been there and done that before -- which is part of their charm. This is amateur racing, done mostly for fun although there are small purses involved, not big bucks competition where image is everything.
The fast pony stock qualifier for the evening was a young lady by the name of Ashley Passick. For this reason she started at the back of the feature, but was running about third at the end of the first lap. She was leading the next and never looked back, and won by a wide margin. She pulled to a stop in front of the grandstand for a picture with the checkered flag, and got a nice cheer.
The announcer went down to interview her and found out that this was a special occasion -- this was the first feature that she had won. Then, to top it off, it proved that Miss Passick is all of 15 years old! I couldn't help but have a vision of her starting driver's ed, and the teacher asking if she'd ever driven a car before . . .
There were other features, of course. The Vintage Racer feature was fast and loud, and featured most serious carbending accident of the evening -- somebody got loose, somebody else checked up and the next thing you know there were half a dozen cars involved. Fortunately it wasn't very serious and most of the cars were soon back on the track.
In addition to all the racing, there was other fun stuff going on, including the announcer throwing frisbees from the top of the grandstand to kids out back, kids getting free rides in the pace car and lots of innocent fun stuff like that.
All in all it was a great evening. There were families out there having a good time, and I could look around the grandstands and see kids obviously out on dates -- and not a bad date, in my book. The evening was warm enough that shirt sleeves were fine, there was a pretty sunset, no mosquitos -- just a perfect evening.
Best of all, my wife said that it was a fun evening and that we'd have to do it again. And we will.
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Springport is located northwest of Jackson on M-99. The speedway is two miles north, a mile west and another mile north of town. There are large signs. Racing starts at 7:30 Saturday nights for the rest of the season, which runs through mid-September. For more information, http://www.springportmotorspeedway.com
-- Wes Boyd