PHOTOGRAPHS BY VAN ABERNETHY

With hurricane season and winter series in the books , Immokalee Regional Raceway preps for 2023 season

By Van Abernethy

Track owner Ralph Hester was monitoring the storm ’ s movements and was surprised when it made a last-minute unexpected turn , completely missing the dragstrip . “ About 10 miles north of here they got tore up pretty bad , but we didn ’ t so much as have a single light pole down here at the track ,” says Hester . In prior years , there wasn ’ t a

light pole left standing after similar hurricanes .

Storms are to be expected when owning a dragstrip in South Florida . When disaster strikes , Hester can always count on his local racers to rally support and show up to help him rebuild the track , but it sure felt good to dodge a bullet for a change . The September storm came and went , and Hester and son Thomas carried on as usual , preparing for their big winter series of events to close out the 2022 season .

Traditionally held in November , Hester decided on a scheduling change for the most recent running of his winter races , electing to wait until December instead . The motivation for this was simply to schedule his big races closer to the dates of other big events going on in Florida .

“ Specifically , the SFG race at Bradenton was coming up in mid-December , and we were thinking that a lot of people would come down to our winter series and then drive up to Bradenton for SFG , and it really worked out great . It ’ s hard to get people to come to Florida for just one race ,

but if you can put together a series of races that are close to one another , it can be real successful ,” says Hester .

Things got kicked off on Friday , December 2 with the start of Winterfest , which continued until Sunday , December 4 , featuring eliminators in Box , No Box , and Jr . Dragster .

After a short two-day break , it was time to go right into the second half of the winter series , beginning on Wednesday with the Winter Warmup , scheduled for December 7-11 . Wednesday , Thursday , Friday , and Sunday paid $ 10K to win each day , with Saturday ’ s $ 25K purse being the richest payday of the weekend .

The other traditional highlight on Saturday evening is a huge meal provided by the track nearing the end of eliminations , as everyone enjoys the food and fellowship .

“ We were well-satisfied with the turnout of the winter series , and so our plans are to continue scheduling it in December ,” says Hester .

Another major change for Immokalee Regional

March / April 2023

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