A torrid showdown at sunset in the high desert took place at Winnemucca Regional Raceway in Nevada last weekend. Silver miner Alec Childs (pictured in the No. 40) on the outside groove dueled against gold miner and the driver to beat, Cory Sample (00).
“I was leading and he showed his car’s nose to me for the entire [heat] race — we were side-by-side every lap,” said Alec Childs, of Lovelock, Nevada. “In years of racing together, it was the first time that I was able to hold him off.”
A near-repeat battle happened in the feature. Sample’s car got tangled up in a first-lap mishap, forcing him to the pits to change a flat tire. He restarted at the back of the pack and, despite a misaligned front end, worked his way back to the front to finish second, chasing Childs across the finish line.
“Cory is the big star out here,” Childs said. “He has always been there for me to bounce ideas off of and to make suggestions to help me race faster. He was quick to congratulate me on a job well done.”
Sample, a 14-year IMCA modified veteran and reigning champion at a pair of Nevada tracks, Winnemucca Regional Raceway and Fernley 95A Speedway, loves to help other drivers who compete with him. Sample believes that doing so benefits him and everyone else involved in the sport.
“It’s a good feeling when you help other drivers and see their success,” said Cory Sample, of Winnemucca, Nevada. “When you help others grow, you strive to learn even more. It is great for racing to have more cars that are competitive. If I were to win every race, it wouldn’t be fun, the crowds wouldn’t want to see that, and some racers would get discouraged and quit.
“Competitiveness is what drives this sport.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
