Rocky Mountain Raceway celebrates 20th anniversary with new events

SM Headline: Local racetrack celebrating 20th anniversary, check out what’s new this year

Rocky Mountain Raceway is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year with a barrage of new events to attract racers to the facility during the 2016 racing season. Rocky Mountain Raceway, also known as RMR, is an automotive racing facility located west of Salt Lake City. Rocky

“We are very excited about celebrating with our fans,” said Jim Burton, the marketing director for RMR. “This year for our anniversary we have 20 jet cars coming.”

The track staff will introduce another new event called Horsepower Heaven. During this event the jet cars, dirt circle cars and quarter mile cars will all be racing the same night, Burton said.

While there are new events for the 2016 racing season, not every racer is impacted by the changes.

“My attendance is more determined by my schedule,” said Buz Neilson, a frequent racer at RMR. “I am more concerned with the payouts of a race.”

Paul Bognar, a racer from Idaho, has a different outlook on the 2016 racing season.

“They have something for everybody and that is important,” Bognar said. “They have funny car fever which is my favorite series. I would rather go to that than any other racing event.”

RMR attracts many different racers. Travis Byington, a road racer from Utah Motorsports Campus, plans to take his car to the quarter mile track this year.

“Even though my car isn’t set up for drag racing, I want to do a fair amount of that this year,” Byington said.

Tyler Jelke, a student at Weber State University, plans to have his new car out on the track this season as well.

“I build my cars just to have something fun to drive around,” said Jelke. “But I do plan to take my new car to the track a couple times this year to see what it can do.”

The new events for the 2016 racing season might not impact every racer, but the racers still plan to attend the track at some point during the season.

May 7 marks the start of the racing season for RMR. More event information can be found at http://rmrracing.com/events/.