Racing News: The United States Touring Car Championship to Race With IndyCar at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca

Compiled by SEMA Editors

The United States Touring Car Championship to Race With IndyCar at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca

The United States Touring Car Championship (USTCC) has added the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey to its 2021 calendar. The new Round 5 of the championship will be at the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, September 17–19, with the IndyCar series. The weekend starts with practice, qualifying and round 5 of the championship, Friday, September 17, followed by round 6 on Saturday, September 18. Tickets for the event are available at www.weathertechraceway.com.

Drydene Xtreme DIRTcar Series Sets 2021–22 Schedule

The Drydene Xtreme DIRTcar Series has announced its third season winter tour schedule, which features four weekends of Late Model racing from November through February. Eight races are set across South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, as the series adds Lancaster Motor Speedway and I-75 Raceway to the schedule for the first time. The season champion is set to earn $15,000 from a $42,000 point fund that rewards the top 10 overall who compete in the entire schedule. Drydene Performance Products also continues as the title sponsor of the tour. All events will be broadcast on DIRTVision. For more information, visit xtremedirtcar.com.

Fifty Five Promotions Acquires Skagit Speedway

Fifty Five Promotions will take over ownership of Skagit Speedway, the dirt track based in Burlington, Washington. Fifty Five Promotions is the new promotional group comprised of Washington car owners Kevin Rudeen and Mike Anderson and the California-based promoter Peter Murphy. The group takes over ownership from longtime track owner Steve Beitler, who was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2018. Also the owner of Funtime Promotions, Beitler manages the Grays Harbor Raceway in Elma, Washington, and the Summer Thunder Sprint Car Series and the Washington Modified Tour. The acquisition and transition will be completed at the end of the track’s season following the Sage Fruit Skagit Nationals featuring the World of Outlaws 410 sprint cars and NW Focus midgets, September 3–5, followed by the season championship presented by Scrap-It-Stow-It on September 18.

Texas Motor Speedway Promotes New Vice President of Marketing

Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) has promoted Ellen Stallcup to the newly created position of vice president of marketing. Stallcup began working for the multi-purpose facility—which celebrates its 25th Season of Speed this year—in 2003 as an intern with the corporate sales department for the fall IndyCar race weekend. She is now responsible for the development of marketing, advertising, promotional and budgetary planning, and the NASCAR event at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas. She also manages Big Hoss, the 22,704.64-sq.-ft. HD LED display that owns the Guinness World Record as the world’s largest HD LED video board. The Windthorst, Texas native began her full-time career at No Limits, Texas, in 2004 as a ticket sales representative. In 2006, she was named advertising and events manager and promoted to director of the department in 2017. She was promoted in 2020 to the position of director of marketing.

Toyota Racing Forms “The Dream” Experiential Endowment

Toyota Racing has announced the establishment of the Dream Experiential Endowment in partnership with Bubba Wallace’s Live to be Different Foundation. The initiative will see Toyota team up with Wallace’s foundation to assist the students who dream of working within the world of motorsports. It is a continuation of the Toyota Racing “Dream” commercial that took to the airwaves around the 2021 Daytona 500. By working with various organizations around the country, Toyota Racing will identify a minimum of four participants per year and arrange for them to spend a finite amount of time with a Toyota race team or TRD-related organization to experience the dream they have to pursue a career in the world of motorsports. The initial group of recipients will be chosen in the coming weeks and begin their experience during the late summer of the 2021 racing season. Applicants looking to be considered can submit a resume along with a 500-word maximum essay explaining their dream to work in motorsports to ToyotaRacing@golin.com.

Calistoga Speedway Announces HOF Class of 2021

Calistoga Speedway, the 1/2-mile dirt oval in Calistoga, California, has announced its 2021 Hall of Fame class. The Hunt Family, Dewey Gatson, Paul Worden, and Dick Golden join the already announced inductees, which include Gene Figone, Ray Smith, Shane Scott, Roger Henderson, and Rick Hirst. The inductees will be honored during the Louie Vermeil Classic taking place at Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, California, on Labor Day weekend. The 10th annual Calistoga Speedway HOF dinner takes place Friday, September 3, prior to the winged sprint car event running on Saturday and Sunday, September 4–5. For more information, visit the event page.

Kyle Petty Charity Ride Announces Mini Ride for Fall

This fall, Kyle Petty will host the “Charity Ride Revival (CRR),” a one-time only, miniature version of his annual Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America. The CRR was created in response to postponing the larger Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America until Spring 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Differing from the annual Ride, the CRR will be half the time, half the size and based at one single hotel–The Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Virginia. It will also only include previous participants of the Ride. These are precautions put in place by the Ride to protect the safety of participating riders and team members. From September 21–23, the CRR will travel a different route each day to a unique point of interest for riders to explore and enjoy before returning to the hotel.

Kyle Petty’s 2021 Charity Ride Revival Schedule:

• Day 1, Tuesday, September 21 – National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia
• Day 2, Wednesday, September 22 – Seneca Rocks in Seneca Rocks, West Virginia
• Day 3, Thursday, September 23 – New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in West Virginia

The CRR will continue the Ride’s mission of raising funds and awareness for Victory Junction–a camp dedicated to providing life-changing camping experiences for children with chronic and serious medical illnesses. For more information, visit kylepettycharityride.com.

For more racing news, visit Performance Racing Industry’s (PRI) website.