Fair drivers meeting on Thursday

Shawn Kirkland didn’t fix wheels on the old Twenty Mule Teams when they made their way here.

But it’s hard to find someone he HASN’T schlepped tires or turned wrenches for since.

He crewed for NASCAR Hall of Famer Ron Hornaday.

Kirkland remembers when an ambitious kid from Bakersfield would sweep out, and sleep in, the SPEARS Manufacturing Shop in Agua Dulce during the week so he could drive the company race car on weekends.

Perhaps you saw him win the season’s most thrilling Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series finish on Sunday at Loudon, New Hampshire.

Kevin Harvick still cares deeply for racing in his native Kern County and adjoining environs.

As does Kirkland.

The erstwhile Western Pacific Roofing residential supervisor has been tutoring Dylan Lupton, 25, of Sacramento, in recent years.

Lupton has made two starts in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series in 2019.

Kirkland’s pupil finished fifth at Kentucky two weeks ago. He’s posted a top-10 finish in both starts this year.

Dylan Lupton is business for Shawn Kirkland.

More personal is his quest to identify, and develop, an heir to Hornaday as the Valley’s next NASCAR star.

That’s what makes this Thursday night so important.

This Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Hunter Pavilion at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, the AV Fair Motorsports Committee will conduct a drivers meeting in preparation for its ambitious motorsports agenda at the Antelope Valley Fair and Alfalfa Festival next month

Early entries will receive four complimentary tickets to the action on Aug. 22 and Aug. 25.

There will be two divisions of both Figure 8 and Autocross on Aug. 22, and four divisions of the wildly popular annual Demolition Derby on Aug. 25.

The AV Fair Motorsports Committee made its debut with Motor Mayhem at the AV Home and Garden Show in March.

Organizers Peyton Zamrzla and Johnny Troesch hit it out of the park with the event.

For years the Fair Board has heard how impassioned the Valley’s motorsports community is, how they would surpass all reasonable expectations for car counts and spectators.

Which is exactly what they did March 23.

Entries came from as far away as San Francisco, Trona and Orange County, with very little advance notice.

The fans were thoroughly entertained all day.

When it was over, Zamrzla didn’t have to go make his case to the Fair Board.

They came to him with how delighted they were at how the whole thing turned out.

So now, fellow Gearheads, there is an opportunity here.

The Baseball metaphor fits in this case.

Before we ever got the JetHawks and Lancaster Municipal Stadium, we had to prove we could support a California League franchise.

From 1990-95, that’s exactly what we did. Valley fans accounted for half the High Desert Mavericks’ group sales by 1994.

In 1993, when independent baseball entrepreneur Bob Weinstein proposed building a stadium at Avenue M and 10th Street West and stocking it with the Antelope Valley Ravens, 976 season ticket deposits were left on his office phone in Chatsworth in barely over two days.

The Fair Board is clearly listening, and watching, after the success of the Home and Garden Show.

Another huge turnout at the Fair next month could lead to establishing a quarterly racing series at the Fairgrounds Grandstand, with an annual championship round at the Fair.

After that, the catchfencing and paving of a permanent 5/8th’s mile track — Indianapolis O’Reilly Raceway Park West, if you will — could make the Fairgrounds a 15-20 weekends home for NASCAR sanctioned racing.

Hornaday has already promised that if we build it, Harvick, Clint Bowyer, Aric Almirola, Daniel Suarez, Tony Stewart, Kyle Larson and Robby Gordon, at the minimum, would come up to run a dirt modified race to mark the grand opening.

Especially if the grand opening of Ron Hornaday Fairgrounds Raceway were timed for the weekend of NASCAR’s annual winter visit to Fontana.

How many people would that bring to town?

With its industrial zoning on three sides and the freeway on the fourth, the Fairgrounds Grandstand is the most intriguing potential racetrack site in Southern California.

As a regular at JetHawks games, Kirkland understands the drill.

This is our chance to step up to the plate.

Beginning Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Fairgrounds’ Hunter Pavilion.