AUTO RACING: Deming Speedway opens tonight

“I’m excited about the challenge of racing in the 1,200s,” Hendrickson said in a phone interview. “I’m ready to get started.”

Hendrickson’s wait is almost over, as the 2008 race season at Deming Speedway opens at 7 p.m. tonight.

Track manager Paul Lemley said he is expecting one of the largest weekly fields in the track’s history with more than 70 drivers expected to compete in at least one of the 1,200, 600, 600 restricted, 250 and Kasey Kahne Junior Sprint classifications at the speedway. “We have all the (class)

champions back from last year, plus probably 20 or 30 new, really talented drivers,” Lemley said in a phone interview. “We’re expecting more than 70 cars for each weekly show. That’s an incredible car count.”

But many eyes early in the season likely will be on Hendrickson after he averaged more than 66 mph around the onesixth- mile clay oval in Saturday’s testing session.

“He certainly looked really good,” Lemley said.

Despite his young age and inexperience in a 1,200 car, it’s not like Hendrickson came out of nowhere. He’s been racing at area tracks since the 2000 season — nearly half his life.

He finished 12th in the 600 point standings last season, 310 points behind series season champion Logan Forler, after experiencing a series of motor troubles that he said took about six weeks to diagnose.

That was the first time he finished outside the top 10 in the season series he was racing in since he began at Skagit Speedway in 2000 and finished third in the quarter midgets. He followed that up by finishing second in 2001 and first in 2002.

In 2004 he finished second in the Kasey Kahne Junior Sprints at Deming and won the Sportsmanship Award, earning him a trip to Phoenix for the fall NASCAR race and a chance to meet Kahne, a native of Enumclaw.

He went on to finish seventh in the 600 class in 2005 and fifth in the same class in 2006.

With that level of success, it’s no wonder Hendrickson feels he’s ready to make the jump to the competitive 1,200 class at Deming this season.

“There are some really good drivers in the 1,200s,” Hendrickson said. “The competition level is so high in that class, because you’re going up against drivers with a lot more experience. There are at least four really good drivers ... Brock Lemley is one of the best drivers in the Northwest, and Jason Bloodgood, Derek Holmwood and Aaron Fell are great, too.”

So how does a 15-year-old match up against an all-star list like that?

“Who knows?” Hendrickson said. “It’s so tough to tell. I guess we’ll find out sometime this year.”

Hendrickson said there are very few differences between the 600 and 1,200 class cars.

“The cars are really similar to drive,” he said. “The 1,200s just have more horsepower.”

And as he showed Saturday, Hendrickson can handle the extra horsepower.

Now he’ll get to see how he handles racing against more experienced drivers and having them lean on him as they slide around the turns.

“Hopefully racing these guys doesn’t intimidate me that much,” Hendrickson said. “I would hope that I would push back. I’m just excited to go up against drivers of that skill level and really test myself.”

Paul Lemley said there won’t be many changes at Deming Speedway this season other than “minor improvements” to the facilities.

The 600 class will utilize a single- file restart this year, rather than the double-file it had been using.

The track also will host a night of flat-track motorcycle racing this season, adding the Sept. 5 Skagit Powersports Flat Track World Championships. The two-night event will wrap up on Sept. 6 at Skagit Speedway.

Though Deming will get to host a July 4 fireworks spectacular on the holiday, the 22-week schedule will be highlighted, of course, by the Nooksack River Clay Cup Nationals July 17-19.

“I’m expecting a bigger season than any out here,” Lemley said. “With the economy the way it is, I expect a lot of people to stay closer to home this summer. They’re still going to need entertainment, and where can you find that better than here. We’re just ready to get things rolling on Friday.”