Ronan man wins Legend's Thunder race

Zach Urness

Leader Staff

If you happen to see a miniature sized 1934 Ford Coupe rocketing around a racetrack at as much as 80 miles per hour don't be confused — it's all part of the Legend racing series.

And Ronan's Tim Corbett has emerged as a big winner in the series, as the owner of Lucky Strike Lanes took home first prize in Kalipell's sixth annual "Legend Thunder" race two weekends ago.

"We had a pretty good day," said Corbett. "We picked up a nice little pay check and qualified for a spot in the national Legends race in Las Vegas."

But if you're like many people south of Kalispell, you might not know exactly what Legends racing is.

"They're scaled down replicas of coupes and sedans that were raced 60 or even 70 years ago," explained Corbett.

The cars, which are roughly five-eighths scale replicas, are built with the same carburetors, ignitions and 1,250 cubic centimeter engines as Yamaha FJ1200 motorcycles. Most of the parts that drivers buy are sealed, minimizing the modifications and upgrades drivers can make, thus spotlighting the driver's ability.

"It helps make sure that things are pretty equal and that nobody has a huge advantage," said Corbett, noting that the drivers are generally required to buy the car's kits from the 600 Racing, the company in charge of Legends racing.

According to 600racing.com, the official site of Legend racing, the concept behind Legend cars was to create a fun and affordable "spec" class of racing for anyone to participate.

Since their inception in 1992 Legend racing has become one of the fastest growing segments of racing today, and there are currently over 3,500 scale model replicas in existence with races going on all over the country.

With most of the parts on the cars are similar or identical, the drivers and crew can do a few things to gain an advantage over their opponents.

"The setup of the car and the way you put together the chassis becomes the most important aspect," noted Corbett.

Corbett has been into racing for 11 years with compact cars at the Mission Valley Speedway and in Kalispell, but said that this is just his second year racing Legend cars and that he decided to get serious about Legend racing just last fall.

"I sold my old car and bought a new chassis last fall," said Corbett, "and I surrounded myself with a great group of guys to work on the car, including a real expert named Scott Grosswiler who helped us put together the car in a way that would allow us to be successful. Scott Moderie has also been with us for a while and does a lot of the tough wrench work."

All the work paid off two weekends ago at the sixth annual Legend Thunder race in Kalispell, where over 70 Legend drivers gathered for Raceway Park's biggest Legends race of the year.

There are four different divisions for Legend racers including the Pro Division, which is for the experienced drivers, and the Semi-Pro Division, which is for novice drivers that are new to the sport or have been inactive in other forms of racing for a while. There is also the Young Lions Division which is designated for the drivers between the ages of 12 and 16 and finally, there is the Masters Division, which features drivers 40 years and older and is the division that Corbett took home first place in.

The big win netted Corbett and his team a $1,000 check, but also qualified him for the Asphalt Nationals race in Las Vegas on October 18th.

"Having won that race really takes the stress off," said Corbett. "We automatically have a spot in the finals now. Otherwise we would have had to try and qualify in a race during the weekend."

At Nationals Corbett expects that there will be more than 350 cars in that field and a very high level of competition.

"That'll be a pretty big, crazy deal," he said, "but it sure would be nice to get another big, fat check."