Rolling Thunder Raceway in Bacchus Marsh – Victoria, will once again awake from its winter slumber with a  new season of speedway action revolving around the reconstituted Sprintcar Thunder Series and the  burgeoning Late Model Sedans. The awesome Late Model Sedans will conduct their inaugural Victorian Championship as well as a couple of other  shows while the thundering V8 Dirt Modifieds will make their debut here with a couple of shows also. AMCA  nationals will again be prominent as will various other sedan classes such as the VSC Open Sedans and the Formula  V8 sedans.  The Sprintcar Thunder Series was inaugurated on remembrance day in November 2006 to give an emphatic push for  360 cubic inch engined Sprintcar racing in Australia. It was ultimately successful in the Garden State leading to the  creation of the Australian Sprintcar All Star Series which is conducted across both Victoria and South Australia.   Throwing its support behind the All Star Series, Rolling Thunder Raceway eventually sacrificed its own Sprintcar  Thunder Championship Series allowing the All Stars to become the pre-eminent 360 Sprintcar series in Australia.  Now the time has come to resurrect the Sprintcar Thunder Series as a Victorian companion based championship to  the All Stars series. The Sprintcar Thunder Series will be open to all ASCS, SCCA and VSC Sprintcars.   “We are in no way trying to compete with the All Stars series but rather augment it and give 360 Sprintcar  competitors more race dates, especially within Victoria,” said an STS spokesman. “In fact we have worked with  the All Stars to set our calendar to avoid direct clashes with them as the last thing we want to do is to force  competitors to choose between one series or the other as that doesn’t help either of the series’ or the fans by  splitting the fields.” As in previous series, Rolling Thunder Raceway will be the mainstay of the Sprintcar Thunder Series with Ballarat’s  Redline raceway also hosting a couple of shows as they’ve done previously. The possibility also exists for a couple  of other venues to run a round of the Sprintcar Thunder Series. Both of these tracks, which will hopefully be  confirmed soon, have not run Sprintcars for some time. Also, the Sprintcar Thunder Series will be ground breaking  in another way for Victorian fans with Redline Raceway deciding to run a two night show in conjunction with  Rolling Thunder Raceway on the January Australia Day Long weekend - the traditional date for the Grand Annual  Sprintcar Classic (This year the classic has been moved forward a week but the Australian Sprintcar Championship  will be conducted in Adelaide on the Australia Day weekend). Additionally the Sprintcar Thunder Series will be  concluded on the Easter Saturday night at Redline in another break from tradition.  “In discussions with Mick Purdie from Redline Raceway it was decided to run on the Easter Saturday as we both  felt that a lot of Victorian Sprintcar fans don’t travel to Mt Gambier for the Easter Saturday night,” said the  Rolling Thunder Raceway spokesman. “This way we are giving those Victorian fans the opportunity to see three  nights of Sprintcar racing without having to leave the state, once again putting the local fans first.” As a point of difference the Sprintcar Thunder Series will be conducted along the lines of the very successful Lucas  Oil ASCS National series in the USA with each driver contesting only one heat, but over a greater number of laps  than usual, with the top five heat finishers locking straight into the first 10 feature positions. The remaining spots in  the final will be filled via the B-Main.  Late Model Sedans are a growing class in Australia with a solid footing in Western Australia, Queensland and New  South Wales and are in their infancy in South Australia and Victoria. Rolling Thunder Raceway was the first  Victorian track to ever run Late Models back in January 2006 when they hosted a dozen cars from West Australia  and New South Wales. More recently the Late Models were here as part of the Trans Tasman Sedan Challenge. The  big banger sedans will get two warm up events in November and December before the inaugural Victorian Late  Model Championship is conducted the week after the National Championship on February 4th.   Formula V8’s will be the main-stay V8 sedan category at the big bowl with AMCA Nationals also helping sate the  appetite of V8 speedway fans. VSC Open Sedans, ASCF Junior Sedans, Open Sedan Juniors, Standard Saloons,  Street Stocks, Australian Wingless Sprints and SDAV Hot Rods will also have their time under the bright lights of  Bacchus Marsh. Veteran Sprintcar racer Wayne Milburn has also developed his own “budget” V8 Wingless Sprintcars based around  the Aluminium Holden V8 engine and they will also be given the opportunity to demonstrate their ability on  numerous occasions and once numbers grow they may become a regular racing class. A track championship will also be conducted for all classes while negotiations are being conducted with the Limited  Sortsman’s and Super Rods for a potential race date. Rolling Thunder raceway reconfirms its commitment to  recognise all forms of speedway licensing be it SCCA, VSC, ASCF or other.  Look out for future media release outlining further planned events or for further information contact Chris Overall on 0409 847 780, Rob Harris on 0418 977 783 or Ray Solomon on 0407 801 513 or visit us on Facebook. Past News Items: Successful Sunday Speedway return to Rolling Thunder Raceway