Evergreen Speedway’s big track opener rained out

MONROE — Racing on the big track did not return to Evergreen Speedway on Saturday.

Instead, what returned was the rain.

“We tried to get it in,” Evergreen promoter Lex Johnson said after cancelling the evening’s events. “We tried to get the track dry but the rain came back.”

The late model cars of the American Speed Association Northwest Tour and the winged sprints of the ASA Northwest Sprint Car Racing Association were scheduled to open their respective racing seasons Saturday on Evergreen’s five-eighths mile oval.

Although the sky was overcast most of the day, rain didn’t begin to fall until the end of the sprint cars’ qualifying session.

With the late models lined up in qualifying order on pit road, speedway personnel spent a little more than an hour trying to dry the track.

The backstretch and turns were close to being raceable when the rain returned. Johnson checked the weather radar, saw no break in the unfavorable conditions, and made the decision to cancel the races shortly after 6 p.m.

“The fans came out and sat in the rain and cold,” Johnson said. “But at some point you have to make the decision you hate to make.”

Just minutes before the decision was made, Northwest Tour director Ron Bennett — who is also the promoter at Yakima Speedway — had kidded Johnson that all track promoters should carry a large supply of antacid on race nights.

But after the announcement was made, Bennett said Johnson “made the right call.”

Johnson has only recently become Evergreen’s promoter, and Saturday was to be his first night of racing on the big track. He said tickets for Saturday’s races would be honored at any future event of equal or lesser value.

After not racing at Evergreen last year, the Northwest Tour had been scheduled to start its 10-race 2008 season at the Monroe track. The Tour will return to Evergreen in July to take part in the Washington 500 and in September for its season finale.

The winged sprints were scheduled to run the annual Doug James Memorial.

Evergreen’s weekly racing season kicks off on April 12 with all three divisions of the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series and the figure eight cars racing.

Making lemonade: One benefit for the Northwest Tour is the drivers who didn’t make the trip to Evergreen won’t fall behind in the points battle.

While 14 late-model cars were set to qualify for Saturday’s 125-lap race before it was cancelled, two of those ¬— Jill Lang’s No. 27 and James Mugge’s No. 34 — belonged to drivers from Evergreen’s weekly racing series.

Bennett said before the race that no Tour teams from east of the Cascades were able to make the trip over the passes, and three cars from Oregon also stayed home.

Low car counts were also a problem at the start of the Tour’s 2007 season, the first year after NASCAR stopped sanctioning the series to save money.

Bennettt said he was confident by the Tour’s next event on May 10 at Stateline Speedway in Post Fall, Idaho, the count would be closer to the 22 cars that took the track for the series’ 2007 finale.

Honoring a friend: Lang’s car will be used to honor Mark Galloway, a 2006 graduate of Monroe High School and the Sno-Isle Auto Technician Training Program, who died Jan. 20.

The hood of Lang’s car is decorated with large pictures of Galloway and his personal car — done by Johnson’s Concept Racing and Graphics ¬— and there are also stickers honoring Galloway on the fenders.

Galloway, who was student of the year for the Sno-Isle program and a member of the National Technical Vocational Honor Society, had planned on joining Lang’s crew this season.

History wasn’t made: Had Lang started the race, she would have been the second woman to start a Northwest Tour event in the 24-year history of the series.

The first, LeAnn Tanner, was also at the track on Saturday. Kelly Tanner, husband to LeAnn, was planning on running Saturday’s race in the No. 65 car.

It was announced that LeAnn Tanner was more than ready to jump into any available car to race alongside Lang.

How cold was it? Even before the rain fell, the weather was cold and windy at Evergreen.

Drivers, car crew and family members in the infield and fans in the grandstands wore a combination of sweatshirts, knit hats, jackets, gloves and scarves, and more than a few were wrapped in blankets.