Thunder and Lightning event starts Saturday with NASCAR

By T.Q. Jones

Kyle — Thunder Hill Raceway opened in April of 1998 with no fanfare but the inherent appeal of auto racing (it’s often said the first auto race

happened as soon as the second automobile was built) has let the track attract a relatively small but consistent following to what used to be

weekly races.

Though small crowds, due primarily to the absence of strong promotion and advertising, led many to think the audience for short track stock car

racing in Central Texas is small. That changed in a hurry when Full Throttle Productions leased the track in September of 2005 to produce the

“Allstate Texas Thunder 200,” a race featuring the NASCAR Grand National Division series.

Formerly known as the NASCAR Winston West Series, the Grand National Division parallels the better-known Busch Series and features NASCAR Nextel Cup cars with a few modifications.

The Allstate Texas 200 was as much an event as a race. It drew a sell-out crowd of over 9,000 into Thunder Hill to hear the sounds of Little Texas,

Vallejo and Patricia Vonne and then watch some 20 of the best drivers in NASCAR do battle on the unique D-shaped Thunder Hill oval.

“Thunder Hill is a fun place for fans to watch any race, but for the races to be NASCAR and now USAC is something no other racetrack in the state

offers,” says Tavo Hellmund of Austin, himself a NASCAR driver and the co-founder of Full Throttle Productions. “The intimate setting of a

3/8th-mile track allows fans to watch the cars race up close and experience how fast and exciting big-time auto racing really is.”

The Grand National Division Series may be the toughest test of stock car racing in the country. While the Nextel Cup cars race primarily on larger

ovals, with only a couple of events on tracks as short as a half mile, the Grand National Division drivers race virtually the same cars on tracks as

small as a quarter-mile and as long as two miles.

But, as NASCAR Grand National Division director Mike Verlatti said in a phone interview, the excitement level is huge when these 3,400-pound cars are packed into the confines of a three-eighths mile oval.

“The level of excitement from the crowd was higher than any other track we went to,” Verlatti said. “It was easily the best event we had last year,”

That is a pretty strong statement for a first-time event hosted by two promoters new to promotion of a race. “Tavo, Aryn White and those people at Full Throttle really know how to promote,” said Verlatti “Of course, the Texas friendliness we saw when we came down here also helped make it a great event for the drivers, teams and officials. We’re really excited to be coming back.”

The 2005 race officially became a sellout when there was no place left to park cars and no place left in the packed grandstands. In other words,

the event was a little more successful than even Hellmund and Full Throttle partner Aryn White expected. So successful, in fact, that an

expanded three-weekend family event will start on September 30, 2006.

“We are really excited to be bringing NASCAR racing back to Central Texas,” White said at a press conference announcing the 2006 Allstate

Thunder & Lightning Racefest. The “Thunder” is NASCAR; the “Lightning” is in the form of the United States Auto Club (USAC) National Midget Series, which returns to the Lone Star State for the first time in nearly 40 years. “The addition of the USAC National Midget Series races is sure to attract open-wheel race fans and expose Texans to another exciting form of racing,” White noted.

The concept of USAC Midget racing is simple: draw as much horsepower as you can out of a compact engine, then bolt it into an open-wheel, open cockpit chassis that is as light as you can get it.

The result is an intensely fast, pure racing machine built for heart-stopping, wheel-to-wheel action. Legendary drivers such as A. J. Foyt and Mario Andretti and current superstars Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart consider their wins in USAC Midgets among the most difficult of their careers. Stewart continues to race USAC Midgets when his Nextel Cup schedule permits.

For both racers and fans in Central Texas, last year’s Allstate Texas 200 was proof of the interest in both national and local racing in the Austin

area, where NASCAR ranks second in televised sports (behind the NFL) just as it does nationally. For fans, it means a chance to see top-notch

competition. For some drivers, it’s a chance to test themselves against that competition without having to travel to the East or West Coasts, as

Hellmund has had to do to compete in the Grand National Division.

Full Throttle Productions intends for the NASCAR/USAC combo to be an annual event, with other races in the planning stages. Drawing cars and

drivers from other short track series, as well as exposing both local drivers and local fans to a wider variety of competition will mean more

opportunities for drivers trying to make it at the higher levels of the sport. At the same time, both NASCAR and USAC are benefiting by having

their race series brought into the huge Texas and Central Texas market area.

Saturday’s NASCAR Texas Thunder 200 starts at 7 p.m., while the USAC race weekend is slated for Oct. 14-15.

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