SACRAMENTO, Calif. – This weekend brings a unique event for the NARC-King of the West Fujitsu Sprint Cars with the second annual Morrie Williams Legends Tribute Race slated for Oct. 9 at Hanford’s Keller Auto Speedway.
The event will be the second of two nights of racing at the three-eighths-mile with the Cotton Classic featuring the Sprint Car Challenge Tour 360 sprint cars and Kings of Thunder 410 sprint cars taking place on Friday night.
Joining NARC-KWS on the second night will be the Kings of Thunder 360 sprint cars.
With the scheduled classes, Hanford is the place to be this weekend for any West Coaster who enjoys the sight and sounds of roaring winged sprint cars.
Saturday honors legendary West Coast car owner, Morrie Williams. Williams passed away two years ago after putting many of the sport’s best drivers in the seat of his notorious No. 0 over multiple decades. Among those to drive for Williams was none other than Keller Auto Speedway promoter, Peter Murphy.
The format Saturday night will showcase a pair of 20-lap Fujitsu General USA events. The second feature will be lined up based on a complete inversion of the first’s finish apart from lapped cars as a salute to Williams who preferred to watch a driver earn it with a charge from the back. Up for grabs will be more than $36,000 in prize money.
Each Fujitsu Feature is set to pay $3,200 to the winner creating a possible $6,400 payday to any driver who can pull off the sweep. The overall points champion will earn an extra $2,000 for their efforts. While points will be scored for both main events, only the first of the two features will award points toward the NARC-King of the West Fujitsu championship standings.
Last year, in a storybook finish, Kyle Hirst and Dominic Scelzi won the features wheeling twin Morrie Williams No. 0 machines in the event’s inaugural edition.
Scelzi leads the series into the weekend as he continues to close on his first NARC title. He carries a streak of nine straight top-five finishes and a 2.2 average finish over that span. The Fresno native owns a pair of King of the West triumphs at Keller Auto Speedway and has already won three races in Hanford this year.
Behind Scelzi is Tim Kaeding, and he’ll roll into the weekend riding nine consecutive top-10 results. TK’s second please finish last weekend marked his fourth straight series top-five at Hanford, and he’ll go for his 11th Keller Auto Speedway KWS win Saturday.
Just last weekend, Keller Auto Speedway continued a recent trend of producing first time NARC-King of the West winners. Corey Day triumphed in just his 10th series start, marking the third time in the last five seasons an inaugural winner has emerged from Hanford.
A driver that may perpetuate the trend is Joel Myers Jr. The 15-year-old has continued to impress after finishing on the podium in just his second series start earlier this year. Myers Jr. seemed poised for another top-three run last Saturday in Hanford until an incident forced him to settle for 11th.
Other expected entries include a pair of Hanford natives in DJ Netto and Mitchell Faccinto, four-time series titlist Kyle Hirst, Campbell’s Bud Kaeding, Roseville’s Sean Becker, Benicia’s Billy Aton, Clovis’ Sean Watts, Austin McCarl from Iowa, and more.