Elk Creek track manager Mike Walters , who ’ s also a competitor in the Original Gear Jammers series .
Hannah Blevins , the points leader in Footbrake . She ’ s scored backto-back wins this season .
Josh Barczy , winner of the Original Gear Jammers class .
when suddenly , Walters looked up and saw none other than multi-time IHRA Super Stock world champion Mike Boyles pulling through the gate ... and behind him was a whole caravan of stick-shift racers ! As it turns out , a huge meet in Bristol had been rained out , and so Boyles and some friends he travelled with decided to make a few turns off the interstate and head to Elk Creek to check out the new stick-shift class . “ It was a situation where weather changed the course of history !” Walters laughingly recalls .
Boyles and other stick-shift racers had been invited early on and knew they had a standing
November / December 2023
invitation to come to Elk Creek , but most of them were tied up with IHRA ’ s Super Stock and Modified classes and were on tour extensively . After that one fateful Saturday , though , stick-shift racers in the local area began taking notice of what Elk Creek was doing , and a few more cars started showing up , and after that , a few more racers began knocking the dust off their cars and it just continued to catch on . Then it began to branch off into other groups and spread .
Among the most well-known stick-shift racers in the country is a traveling group known as the Classic Gear Jammers , which can be directly traced back to Elk Creek in 1990 . “ Since then , it ’ s never really stopped growing !” says Walters . “ We had a total of 38 gear-jammers last Saturday , including six new ones !” he adds .
The program that runs exclusively at Elk Creek is known as the Original Gear Jammers , and they have eight events on the 2023 schedule . There ’ s always a bracket race held on the same Saturday , which brings the car count to around 180 entries at some meets . “ Bracket racing is here to stay and it ’ s what keeps the track open , so we have 24 scheduled bracket point races this year .”
Additionally , Elk Creek also has a points series for index racers . “ If the weather cooperates , we will start as early as March with test-andtune , and after that we ’ re racing practically every weekend .”
The Killer Street series was also booked in six times this season and features small-tire , heads-up racing . Labor Day and Memorial Day weekends are both heavily attended with bigmoney bracket events , with Memorial Day paying $ 3,000 to win in all three regular classes : Super Pro , Footbrake , and Jr . Dragster . “ By October we ’ re winding down , and while our regular points season is over by then , we ’ ve traditionally had some great stick-shift races nearing the end of the season .”
The last stick-shift race of the year at Elk Creek promised to be one to remember , with extralarge payouts . “ Those guys have gotten together to increase the purse for that season-finale race . It was originally going to be $ 3,000 to win , but it ’ s now reached $ 5,000 to win and may even keep growing !”
The final events of the 2023 season included a two-day event known as Street 2 Strip , as well as a final index event to close out October . “ It ’ s been a great year , and we ’ re constantly looking for ways to improve our program as well as the facility itself ,” concludes Walters . DI
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