New Castle, Ind.—Oct. 25, 2012— Arizona used to be a haven of sprint car racing, at the beginning and end of each season, as drivers from the Midwest would escape the cold by heading to the desert. That trend slowly began to disappear in recent years, but officials at Canyon Raceway Park in Peoria, Ariz., have been working hard to resurrect the tradition. Tracy Hines has done his part to support the efforts at Canyon as he raced in the Hall of Fame Classic last year, as well as competing in the Winter Freeze at the facility this past winter. He will return to the semi-banked oval three more times in 2012, including for a pair of races this weekend.
Hines will take to the track for the 12th Annual Parker Store Hall of Fame Classic at Canyon Speedway Park with the USAC Amsoil National Sprint Car Series on Friday, Oct. 26 and Saturday, Oct. 27 for two full racing programs, piloting the MP Environmental DRC. Each night will begin with time trials, followed by heat races and a main event. A strong field of nearly 40 cars is currently expected for the two-night event.
“The Hall of Fame Classic was a great event last year and there seems to be a lot of excitement again this year,” said Hines. “We’ll be racing quite a bit over the next few weeks at Canyon in both the sprint car and midget, so all the laps we have there already this year should help quite a bit. There are definitely a lot of great fans in that area, who really enjoy sprint car racing.”
Hines was victorious three times and finished among the Top-Five in five of the six rounds that comprised the Winter Freeze at Canyon Speedway Park in late January and early February to win the overall championship of the mini-series that pit the ASCS Canyon Region versus the USAC West Coast Series. Each of the six main events that were part of the Winter Freeze were 30 laps in distance.
“We certainly had a lot of success at Canyon in the winter and hopefully we can continue that this weekend,” he noted. “There is going to be a lot of good cars there and we’ll have our work cut out for us. We’ll use some of the things we learned back in the winter and have a good baseline to go off when we roll the car out of the trailer on Friday.”
Hines won for the first time during the Winter Freeze on Jan. 29, which was the third round of the event and followed that up with a triumph in the fifth round on Feb. 3. He capped off the six-race mini-series with a victory in the finale on Feb. 4 to lock up the title. The 2002 USAC Amsoil National Sprint Car Series champion finished second in the second round of the Winter Freeze on Jan. 28, leading a number of laps, before Jon Stanbrough took the top spot in the late going, and was also second in the third round on Jan. 29. He opened the Winter Freeze with an 11th-place showing on January 27.
“It was a pretty remarkable stretch of races we had during the Winter Freeze,” shared Hines. “When you are on a roll like that it definitely helps to run the same track and set-up night after night. The surface will probably be a little bit different now in the fall, since there’s been a full season of racing on the track, but we’ll be ready to adjust and adapt accordingly.”
The USAC Amsoil National Sprint Car Series made their debut at the three-eighths-mile just outside of Phoenix last year, with Hines finishing 13th in each of the two main events. In the opener of the event, he finished fourth in the first eight-lap heat race to earn a spot in the 30-lap main event, after opening the night by recording the 21st-fastest lap in time trials of the 35 entries. The second night saw Hines time in 13th and finish third in the first heat to punch his ticket into the A-Feature.
Hines enters the two-night event at Canyon Raceway Park fourth in the USAC Amsoil National Sprint Car Series championship standings. He has two wins with the series this season, to go along with 19 Top-10 finishes of which 11 are Top-Five performances. The native of New Castle, Ind., was victorious in a midget last weekend in the Kokomo Klash at Kokomo Speedway in his home state of Indiana, while finishing third in the sprint car feature that headlined the event.
“We were able to win in the midget last weekend at Kokomo and hopefully can carry a little of that momentum out west,” Hines said. “We have four more sprint races this year and that’s four more chances to get wins. Like most every race nowadays, you have to put yourself in a good position all night, have a good car and have a little luck on your side as well.”
Tracy Hines Racing would like to thank: MP Environmental, DRC, AFCO Racing Shocks, Bell Race Gear, FatHeadz, Kenny’s Components, Race Bumpers, Rod End Supply, Schoenfeld Headers and Stanton Racing for their continued support.
For more information on Tracy Hines Racing, including a complete 2012 schedule, visit http://www.tracyhinesracing.com. Follow Tracy on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/TracyHinesRacin.
