36th Annual Fox Hunt at Boise, Idaho

Words and photos by Brian Losness

There is something to be said for tradition and keeping the past alive. It was once said, “We need to know where we have been in order see where we are going.”  The New family has done this to perfection as once again the family has put forth a great effort in putting on the 36th Annual Fox Hunt at Firebird Raceway. 

The credit for the Fox Hunt has to be given to Bill Doner, back in the days of OCIR, for ladies to get into the races for free so they could spend time with their husbands and boyfriends who were going to the drags.

Fast forward nearly forty years and the concept still works, and this was evident with the stands being full on Saturday afternoon, June 22. The crowd was treated to an afternoon and evening of old school drag racing with jet cars, Funny Cars, Pro Mods, and The Outlaw Ed Jones in his Jelly Belly Stage Coach wheelstander.

Scialpi gets down and dirty.

For this event, in addition to the weekly line up of bracket classes there is a Fox class just for the ladies. There is no shortage of quality lady competitors at Firebird. This means the competition for the title in this hotly contested class is close and exciting.

The West Coast Outlaw Pro Mods were the headliners for the Fox Hunt this year. Leading the contingent of Pro Mods was Marc Meadors setting a new track record in qualifying of 5.91 seconds at a booming speed of 246.10 miles per hour.

The tenacity award goes to veteran racer John Scialpi, who lost the transmission in his hauler in Las Vegas, and his friend and former Pro Mod racer, Wayne Torkelson, who now lives not very far from the Firebird facility. Torkelson hopped into his truck, made the trek to Vegas, picked up the trailer, Scialpi and crew, and brought them to the track.