MONROE — Everything is just a little bit bigger in Evergreen Speedway’s upcoming 2023 season. Some of the vehicles that will race at the racetrack this season are larger, Summer Showdown’s premier night is grander, and the season is just a touch longer.
Evergreen drops the green flag on 2023 on Saturday — weather permitting — and the theme of this year’s season is: going big.
“We’re excited, it’s going to be a fun year,” track president Doug Hobbs said. “We’ve got some new racing, and I think we’ll have good car counts across the board in our 10 home track classes, so those are really good things.”
The season kicks off Saturday with five classes racing, including the track’s premier weekly class: Pro Late Models. It’s the first of 37 scheduled race dates between now and the season finale on Oct. 7.
As for this season’s new racing, that’s where the larger vehicles come in. For what’s believed to be the first time ever, the North American Big Rig Racing tour comes to Evergreen on May 27-28. The tour, which is based in Canada and travels to tracks throughout Canada and the western United States, features the likes of Mack, Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks, which will race on Evergreen’s 3/8-mile track.
“I’m not sure if they’ve ever been here before, but it’s the first time since (Hobbs became track president in 2010),” Hobbs said. “It’s going to be a two-day show on Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, and it’s one of the bigger things that’s brand new this season.”
Summer Showdown, Evergreen’s premier event which takes place July 20-22, is also getting an expansion, at least on its final day. Last year Summer Showdown featured main events for both Super Late Models and Pro Late Models for the first time, with a $40,000 bonus payout if a driver won both. Last year the Pro Late Model main took place on Friday and the Super Late Model main ran on Saturday. This year both main events run on Saturday, making for an even more exciting day of racing — and a long day in the seat for the top drivers.
“We just thought that if we adjust the schedule and have those two features in the same night, plus a Legends feature and a Pro 4 Trucks feature, it will be a killer night of racing,” Hobbs said. “If someone is only able to make it out one night, we want to make sure they see a big feature on that Saturday night.
“We’ve cut 50 laps off the Super Late Models main, moving it from 200 to 150, and we allotted time between the Pro Lates and the Super Lates so that the drivers should be able to get a little rest for the changeover,” Hobbs a31ed. “So hopefully they’ll be able to do double duty.”
Finally, the season has been expanded slightly into October. Hobbs said the combination of better weather in October, along with the desire to limit local weekly shows to five classes to tighten up the Saturday night racing schedule, prompted the decision to run a week longer.
In Evergreen’s top weekly class, Pro Late Models, Naima Lang is seeking his third straight points championship and eighth overall in the track’s premier class. His top challengers are expected to be Daniel Moore, Chad Fitzpatrick and Dawson Cox.
For those who are unable to make it out to the racetrack, the television option is back. For the past three years Evergreen’s weekly races were televised a week later on CW11. The original deal was for three years, but the coverage drew good enough ratings that CBS, which owns CW11, decided to re-up for three more years.
Other big races at the track this season include the Mark Galloway Shootout for Super Late Models and Pro Late Models on June 24, the Central Welding SuB3ly 125 for Pro Late Models on July 8, the War of the Wings sprint car race on Aug. 5, the NAPA Auto Parts ARCA 150 featuring the touring ARCA Menards Series West on Aug. 19, and the track’s two championship nights on Sept. 9 and 16.
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