The ensuing spectacle, a figure eight race contained within a quarter mile track, would dwarf the scale of automobile destruction seen earlier that evening.
The drivers sped along the circuit, carving paths with the weight of their buses. Each crossed intersection threatened high-impact collision. Each crowded turn threatened a bus flip.
Although no buses were overturned, and only one was T-boned at the intersection, most of the buses were battered and missing several parts by the race’s end.
“Destruction Night,” as Spartan Speedway Race Director Bill Lackey calls it, featured several other high-thrill, high-contact races.
In the Road Rage event, a slew of racers follow behind a pace car. As the pace car trots forward, the followers spin each other out and jockey for a better position to launch from when the pace car leaves the pack unattended and the two-lap race begins.
Mason resident Doug Speer had competed in the Road Rage race once before and said it’s an adrenaline rush speeding around the track and banging into the other cars.
“Flying around that track is just so much fun. I had this little bugger on three wheels going on the turns,” Speer said, pointing to his Volkswagen Golf. “I love (racing). It’s a blast running into each other. You can drive fast and hit cars and not get in trouble.”
Seated next to her neighbors, son and grandson in a cove beneath the bleachers, Holt resident Tina Root said she had the best seat at the track because there she can feel the vibrations of racers zooming by and catch the scent of heated tires.
Root said she was raised on Spartan Speedway, having attended races there since being brought out to watch her father compete when she was a child.
For Root, to stop attending is inconceivable.
“I’ll always come here,” she said. “I will never stop. I will never stop coming here.”
A number of racing regulars at Spartan Speedway competed in the events Friday. Although they compete with each other on the track, they look out for one another, Lackey said.
“They’ll do anything for each other,” he said. “They’re bitter rivals on the track, but if one of them breaks down they’ll all jump in to help.”
The next “Fun Night” which includes a figure eight bus race, will occur September 5 at Spartan Speedway.
