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Sammy Swindell is a three-time World of Outlaws and five-time Chili Bowl champion. —Photo by Max Dolder, HardcoreRaceFans.com

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Sammy Swindell races a winged sprint car. Lucas Oil 360 ASCS Spring Nationals will be held for the first time at the Phillips County Raceway in Holyoke Sunday, May 28. —Photo by SprintCarNews.com

Sammy Swindell headlines national tour stop at PCR

Dwarfs, trucks and micros add to Memorial Day weekend action

    Phillips County Raceway’s event of the season is slated for Sunday, May 28, with an evening packed full of races, ranging from micro sprint cars to trucks. Gates will open at 3 p.m., with hot laps beginning at 4 p.m. and the green flag set to be waved at 5 p.m.
    The American Sprint Car Series is already in the midst of the 26th Lucas Oil national tour, having made stops at dirt tracks in Texas, Missouri and Kansas already. Only two appearances are scheduled for Colorado, and they will be at El Paso County Raceway in Calhan Saturday, May 27, and in Holyoke May 28, before the tour continues around the country.
    Absent from Colorado for the past 18 years, this will be the first time ever for the Lucas Oil national tour to come to Phillips County, and  Raceway promoter Joe Bellm expects the May 28 event to be sold out. He suggests securing tickets in advance to guarantee entry to PCR’s biggest night of races this year.
    Sammy Swindell will be driving a 360 winged sprint car in the Holyoke lineup, competing against several other strong contenders, including Sam Hafertepe Jr., Johnny Herrera and Wayne Johnson, who have been dominating the tour so far.
    Swindell has been racing since he was 15 years old, mostly in sprint cars. He boasts three World of Outlaws championships, driving a winged sprint car. In midget sprint car racing, he has won the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals five times. He has also competed in NASCAR and Champ Car competition.
    Also a World of Outlaws driver and the 1996 Kings Royal Champion, Herrera has been racing for 32 years. He said he is really looking forward to racing in Colorado. For racers in this series, PCR will be a new track.
    “Even doing this as long as I have, I still really enjoy getting to go to new tracks and face different competition. Our season is going good so far, and I feel like we can use these two stops to really make up some ground and challenge for the championship,” Herrera said.
    Swindell noted, “We’ll just have to look at the tracks and compare them to other tracks we’ve been to and go from there for our base setup. From there, it’s just watching how the track goes the rest of the night and making changes from there. Just being up in the altitude, it’s going to be different, but I’ve already talked with AG Rains, my car owner, so we’ve got some options there.”
    The 25 drivers expected at the PCR stop hail from states throughout the country, as well as Canada.
    So far, Hafertepe leads the tour in points with 892, and he has won five of the feature races.
    
Other races scheduled for the holiday weekend
    Included in the PCR Memorial Day weekend races are Colorado Dwarf Cars. The Holyoke event is one stop in the 2017 Colorado Dwarf Cars state points schedule, which already included one race at PCR at the beginning of the month. Neither Holyoke event is a points race for the dwarfs, but their contests are a thrill to see.
    Five divisions of the International Motor Contest Association make regular appearances at PCR, including modifieds, sport mods, northern sport mods, stock cars and hobby stocks.  
    Each of those five IMCA divisions will have races May 28 in Holyoke, with some local talent expected to be in the competition.
    Colorado Alliance Tour will see IMCA races in Holyoke, Lamar, Fort Morgan and Calhan through the summer. PCR has races scheduled in Holyoke through the end of September.  
    Rounding out the Sunday night program will be compacts, trucks and micro racing.

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