Getting down on dirt

Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.

If you didn't know you were closing in on Pahrump Valley Speedway, the sign would be easy to miss.

"Racing tonight - 7:00" easily could be mistaken for one of the myriad campaign placards dotting State Route 160.

Although it doesn't specifically instruct you to do so, you turn right off the main drag and, at the insistence of a more prominent sign, hang a left onto Oyster Street. You stay on Oyster until - fittingly - the blacktop ends and then you follow the dust cloud billowing behind the car in front of you a few hundred feet to the unpaved parking lot.

The 1/4-mile oval track that sits beyond the main gate spawned the career of 2004 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series champion Kurt Busch; after spending a few hours in the pits and the grandstands, you imagine nothing much has changed in the ensuing dozen years.

And, indeed, not much has. The usual gripes are aired during the drivers' meeting, competitors huddle to discuss who among them is cheating their way to the top of the points standings, and competing crews are quick to help out one another with a spare part or some elbow grease - often without having to be asked. They are scenes repeated across the country every Saturday night at one of the estimated 1,000 dirt tracks in the U.S.

On a recent late summer evening, Pahrump residents Cory and Terri Little unload one of their three race cars from its trailer and prepare for another Saturday night of racing. Unlike Kurt Busch a decade before, the lure of a career in the big leagues of auto racing is not what draws the Littles to Pahrump Valley Speedway.

"What else do we have to do out here during the summer?" Terri Little, a mortgage broker and former off-road racer, responds when asked why she and her husband race. "Honestly, I do it partially for networking for my business."

But that's not to say that Terri Little, who competes in both the Mini Stocks and Mini Mods classes, doesn't take her racing seriously.

"It can get a little competitive," she says with a laugh, "but it's a lot of fun - that's what it's all about."

Although a summer's worth of bumpin' and bangin' has taken its toll on some competitors and car counts are down on this particular Saturday night, the couple of hundred spectators who brave the unseasonably cool temperatures don't seem to mind.

As the aroma of slow-roasted barbecue blends with the smell of exhaust fumes and burnt coolant, the crowd claps appreciatively as Terri Little makes a pass for the lead during her Mini Stocks heat race, and then erupts into cheers as she takes the checkered flag in her red 1991 Geo Storm.

A wide-eyed boy of about 6 clutches his father's hand as they leave their wooden bleacher seats between races and head in the direction of the slow-roasted barbecue. "This is fun," the boy says, to no one in particular.

And that, as Terri Little notes, is what it's all about.