PENWELL Two cars pulled back to the starting line. With tires warm and engines revved to a roar, veterans of the Penwell Knights Raceway looked for their signal.
But tonight was different than usual. Instead of looking toward a “Christmas tree”— the column of starting lights common on drag strips—the custom-built, mechanical monsters preparing to launch across this concrete, quarter-mile stretch in the middle of West Texas awaited their signal to go from a simple, ordinary, double-A powered flashlight bulb.
Additionally, the track was not prepped, which is not the norm for a dragstrip, Justin Kirkham, the owner of the drag strip, said. Tonight, racers would remain true to the roots of street racing.
As a result of an electrical fire on May 22 that destroyed the control tower and decimated their race-day operating infrastructure, Kirkham said, and the rest of the Penwell Knights Raceway crew had to operate without their usual equipment and systems.
On Friday, the raceway hosted its first meet on the track since the control tower burned to the ground. The meet’s purpose was twofold: to serve its loyal Permian Basin gearheads and to raise money to rebuild.
The new tower will not only be a control tower, but will include eight rentable suites overlooking the start line.
During the fire, the track also lost its timing system, PA system, computer system and the racer’s database. Other race-day equipment like handheld radios and track-cleaning chemicals were also lost to the flames, Kirkham said.
So, organization gave way to resourcefulness, and competition on the grounds Friday night more closely resembled a street-race meet. Despite the challenges the fire left them with, the group said they never had thoughts of giving up on the strip.
"The track is a staple of the Permian Basin," Kirkham said in an interview early last week. "Did you quit riding a bike the first time you fell? Failure is not an option. We all deal with setbacks, and be it a huge setback, we will prevail."
About 3,200 people flocked to the event at the outpost of Penwell, just over 15 miles southwest of Odessa. It was the biggest and most successful turnout in recent memory, according to event regulars there Friday.
One of those regulars was Midlander Mark Peck, a mechanical engineer for XCOR and former professional drag racer. Nowadays, when he isn’t building rockets, he’s busy with race cars. Peck has helped build numerous race cars from West Texas in the past decades and has had several hot rod shops in the area. He and his two children have both raced self-built dragsters on the track.
“This is home for us,” Peck said. “It’s a good family sport”.
The competitors put on a show worthy of the turnout and of the cause — highlighted by the appearance and racing from Chris Hamilton, a major leaguer in the national street racing scene and star of Discovery Channel's "Street Outlaws".
Fans circled Hamilton, better known by his racing name "BoostedGT," throughout the evening before and after his races.
Two other professional drivers who made appearances on "Street Outlaws", Mike Murillo and Shayne Ward, also made the trip and competed Friday.
"It means the world," Kirkham said of their appearances. "These guys have such a huge following. They are basically movie stars in the eyes of street racers."
Hamilton won the night's small-tire event, taking several races en route to the victory.
"We just wanted to do anything that we could do to help out drag racing here," Hamilton said after his wins.
Penwell has been the premier drag strip of West Texas since 1966, when the strip opened as Odessa Raceway Park, said Kirkham, who bought the track in 2012 and renamed it Penwell Knights Raceway at Caprock Motorplex.
Kirkham and the Penwell Knights Raceway crew will look to continue hosting events with hopes to attract even more competitors and spectators to the strip on race day.
"Anyone can race depending on the event," Kirkham said. "We have kids racing from age five in Junior Dragsters, and their parents, grandparents racing big cars. If it's got a motor, we've got a class for you.”
