Founded prior to the 1988 racing season, the Northern California Modified Ass’n sanctions one of the state’s oldest active sprint car series.
The NCMA Spec Sprint Car Series was introduced in response to northern California promoters who were looking to host an affordable, low-cost, non-winged, traveling series for dirt sprint cars. It was initially a carbureted spec series, and interest was extremely high with fields of 30-plus cars the norm.
After 35 years, the nomadic series continues to plug along despite current economic hurdles. It is now a non-winged, carbureted and injected spec pavement sprint car series, the only one of its kind in California.
Pavement sprint car racing made a comeback in California during the early 1990s when the California Racing Ass’n sanctioned a handful of pavement events, and later the USAC Western States Sprint Car Series also added non-winged pavement dates to its schedule.
This fueled interest and other series began popping up, including the now defunct California Asphalt Sprint Car Ass’n. The NCMA decided to add pavement races in 1999.
Initially, there were separate NCMA championships for dirt and pavement. The following season, the series crowned separate dirt and pavement champions along with an overall champion.
Pavement racing became so popular among the owners and drivers that officials elected to go strictly pavement racing in 2010. The series has never looked back.
Current competitor Denny Burrell, who served as the club’s president from 2007 through 2020, recalls how the series was formed.
“1988 was the first year. The reason it was started was to provide an affordable alternative in sprint car racing for drivers and owners, particularly in California, and to bring an economical touring series to promoters,” explained Burrell. “Promoters didn’t have enough people with cars for individual tracks to have their own series. They were hungry for a series that would come to them. In the early years, it was a two-barrel carbureted spec class.”
The California Racing Ass’n was the top series for non-winged dirt sprint cars in California at the time, but with an affordable purse and solid car counts, the NCMA didn’t have trouble securing dates.
“It was easy,” stated Burrell. “Promoters were coming to us. We would complement the CRA. We were bringing 30-plus cars and running B mains. Promoters had to pay us a lot less and they got twice the sprint car action for the fans. It was also a good feeder class for CRA.
“In 1999, we started doing what they called the Select Series. The Select Series allowed the teams to run pavement events with their dirt cars,” Burrell continued. “The NCMA wanted to try a few pavement events. We wanted to expand and broaden our footprint. We had a lot of asphalt tracks in California at that time. We had a pretty good blend of 50-50. From Altamont Speedway to Ukiah, Shasta, Lakeport, Madera and Stockton, we had a handful of promoters who saw us on the dirt that wanted to add a sprint car class at their asphalt track.
“We thought, ‘Why not dip our toes into this and see where it goes,’” Burrell said. “There was a lot of interest in the asphalt right from the start.”
Over the years, teams began gravitating toward the pavement events. As car counts grew on the dirt, tracks began adding the non-winged sprint cars to their weekly programs without involvement from NCMA. This led to fewer events on the dirt side of the series’ schedule.
However, NCMA was able to book pavement events more readily. Prior to the 2010 season, teams and series officials agreed to race only on pavement.
Since going to a pavement-only format, it hasn’t always been easy for the series due to a variety of issues.
After USAC quit sanctioning pavement races in California during the mid-2000s, interest in pavement sprint car racing dwindled. King of the Wing tried to rejuvenate it in the form of winged pavement sprint car racing in 2014. The Gunslingers series emerged a few years later with winged events, as well. King of the Wing has ceased operations and Gunslingers has only scheduled a handful of races since 2020.
NCMA is the last remaining pavement sprint car series in California that features a full slate of events and a points championship. But NCMA has faced the low-car count dilemma in recent seasons.
“One of the reasons we are still around is that the NCMA has not priced itself out of the market,” explained Burrell. “We’re competitors. We’re racers and owners, but we’re also promoters. We understand that we must still be smart and provide affordable racing. I think our guys are pure racers, and they know we’re not here to make money. It might be a feeder system to go do something later, but we just love to go racing. We’ve had people put up some money to keep this thing alive.