Holttille’s Toth, other Cocopah regulars take on the Duel in the Desert

LAS VEGAS – Cocopah Speedway regulars may not exactly be making waves here at the 23rd Annual Duel in the Desert at The Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but they are making their presence known, led by Holtville’s Chris Toth.

Toth, racing in the IMCA Sport Modified Division, notched a third place finish in the 28-car A Main 2 here Wednesday night, after winning the 16th of 16 heat races.

Unfortunately, only the main event winners punch a ticket to Saturday’s big finale.

This annual event near the end of the racing season attracts huge entry lists, and the 2020 event is no different, with 229 IMCA Modifieds in the field, 132 Sport Modifieds and 112 IMCA Stock Cars.

Also in the Sport Modified Division, Somerton’s Ty Rogers finished fourth in the seventh heat race Wednesday night, then used a third place finish in the first B main to get into the first A main, where he finished 12th, after starting 27th.

One of the handicaps at this year’s Duel, said Toth, is a shortened format. For example, the heat races are only six laps, and only the top three transfer from there to the A main. Then, the B mains are only eight laps, and the top four transfer from there to the A main. And there are 24 cars in each B main.

“So that makes it tough,” said Toth, who has won six feature events in 2020 at Cocopah Speedway. “It makes it a little tougher to get in (Saturday’s finale), but we’re going to try hard the next two nights.”

Racing resumed Thursday night, with another full round of qualifying – heat races, B mains and A mains – scheduled tonight. Saturday night will find the crème of the crop in each of the three division finales.

Brawley’s Russell Allen had probably the best chance on Wednesday to make it into Saturday’s show. He started off by winning the first of 24 heat races after starting fourth, which put in him automatically into the first A main.

But once he got there, where he started fifth on the grid, “we dropped the anchor and put on the hazard lights,” said a joking but frustrated Allen, who fell back to finish 21st.

“We’re just scratching our heads some with how fast we’ve been at Cocopah and we’ve just been terrible in the slick here from the get go,” said Allen. “We’ll get it figured out though.”

Also in the Modified ranks, Imperial’s Lance Mari finished second in the 12th heat race, to get into the first A main, where he started 13th and finished 15th.

“We just sucked!” said Mari.

Also from Yuma, Cory Hemphill, finished third in the same Sport Modified heat with Toth, after starting fifth, and then ran 12th in the second A main with Toth, and finished 12th after starting 17th.

After the Duel the Desert wraps up, most of the locals will come home and wrap up the 2020 season with the annual Turkey Classic presented by Fisher Chevrolet and Bad Boys Designs, scheduled Nov. 27 and 28 at Cocopah Sepedway.