BANDIMERE ROARS BACK
The noise, the speed and the crowd return for the Mile-high Nationals.
MORRISON» The smell of nitro engines burned out of header pipes as revving engine sounds vibrated through the mountain hills and the sun set behind the bleachers.
This is what Bandimere Speedway fans waited two years for.
A year after the Mile-high Nationals were canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic, 23,000 spectators packed the mile-high bleachers Friday night to witness the return of the annual event to the Front Range.
For many spectators, this is a track to run into old friends, meet other racing diehards and take a selfie with their favorite driver. For Valerie Leonardo, 39, this was the first year she’s been able to bring her 3-year-old daughter, Ava, to her “yearly tradition.”
“My husband and I have been coming here for almost 17 years, since we started dating, so it’s a tradition for us as a couple,” Leonardo said. “It was such a bummer having it canceled last year.”
Last year was just the second time in 32 years that Bandimere scrapped the series — the first of three races in NHRA’S Western Swing. That was accompanied by a legal dispute with Jefferson County over coronavirus restrictions that only made a lost year more difficult.
On Friday, families such as the Leonardos were given the opportunity to renew old family traditions and create new memories.
“The atmosphere is so much fun, it’s loud, you can feel the adrenaline go through your body, it’s fast and it’s a family tradition, which I love the most,” Leonardo said. “That’s what I want my
daughter to enjoy when she comes here.”
Bryant Baker, 35, has attended every Mile-high Nationals race since he was in elementary school. A recreational drag racer himself, the sport runs in the family. Both his dad and older sister are drivers and Baker wants to pass his passion down to his 8year-old daughter, Mia. He placed her on a bike when she was six, in hopes that attending these races will help her see that this is a sport she can succeed in.
“I also wanted her to meet Antron Brown today because he was my idol growing up,” Baker said. “Having access to the racers is something no other sport has.”
For the drivers themselves, racing in Denver is special, and not just because of the 5,800-foot elevation.
Rip Reynolds, a Denver native and assistant crew chief for veteran driver Cruz Pedregon, said it’s the people, from the Bandimere family down to the “dedicated’ Denver fanbase, who make the track dubbed “Thunder Mountain” unique.
“When you look up and all you see is a sea of thousands of fans, it looks like the whole mountainside is full,” Reynolds said. “… Drivers love it here because the whole town is behind you, and that makes a huge difference when you’re racing,”
The qualifying rounds started Friday and continue through Saturday, with the finals kicking off at 11 a.m. Sunday.