Desert Thunder Raceway changed hands earlier this year. At its last race, new promoter Shane Weybright presented retiring promoter Harvey Howard with a trophy to honor his years of service to the facility. Weybright hopes to build on the solid foundation Howard created.
Weybright intends for the Price, Utah, track to provide more than just entertainment. He formed the non-profit Desert Thunder Foundation with the mission, “To tell people about God and His plan of Salvation through education, mentoring, and providing role models of Christian behavior.”
“We’re not preaching — we are showing that it is okay to know that Jesus is the way to personal salvation,” said Weybright, of Bayfield, Colorado. “I believe in the Lord. He gave us a platform. Saturday night at the racetrack is ‘church’ for a lot people. I want to make it bigger than a short prayer before the race.”
Weybright thinks big. In his first year of promoting the speedway, Weybright tripled the size of the pits to hold 200 trailers. Its last race attracted 148 cars. He also doubled the seating capacity to 2,000. Other improvements include a stage in the infield, landscaping on the backstretch, and terracing around turns one and two for fans to pull up a car or truck to watch.
“The speedway will be a full-blown community entertainment facility,” Weybright said. “People didn’t believe my amount of ambition — but now they are seeing it.”
Weybright plans to erect a building at the track to build race cars. He partnered with Utah State University to offer internships at the track. Those programs involve skills ranging from welding, to engine building, to soil management, to heavy equipment operation.
“We will build safe, entry-level race cars, giving people an opportunity to discover racing,” said Weybright. “This is one of the miracles we are accomplishing — racing will replace alcohol and drug addiction. Racing is a safer addiction.”
Come the 2021 season opener in April, Shane Weybright said Desert Thunder Raceway would be in “full send mode.”
“There will be tremendous change, but Harvey will be alongside me to see his dream alive and growing,” Weybright said of the previous promoter. “I will continue to move the track forward, just as Harvey did.”
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.
