Local sprint car racer Joey Duperron and his Duperron Racing Team stepped it up a level last weekend for the Gold Cup at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, finishing 11th out of 36 racers despite driving in a lower-class vehicle.
Duperron Racing often races out of Castrol Raceway in the sprint car series, however Joey points out that there are two classes of sprint cars that race at track.
“There are two different kinds of cars that race there, there’s the sportsman sprint and there’s the 360 sprint,” said Joey. “We are a sportsman sprint team, and we were racing against the 360 sprint this weekend.”
After somewhat of a rough start to the season, Joey made the decision to enter his sportsman car into the primarily 360 sprint car race in order to get some more track time, and the team surprised itself with an 11th place overall finish, and finishing first among sportsman sprint cars.
“We had a tough start to the year. We got wrecked in a couple of races and we weren’t getting the laps we wanted to this season, so we just thought we would go get some lap time and it ended up being a little bit better than that, we did pretty good,” said Joey, adding that 360 cars are much more powerful machines. “Their cars are about 150 horsepower more and weigh 100lbs less. Typically those cars are about a second to a second and a half faster in a lap than our cars generally are.”
Duperron Racing was recently invited to the Race of Champions on July 31 at Castrol Raceway. The special event will feature NASCAR driving legends Michael Waltrip, Dave Blaney, Sterling Marling and Kenny Shrader.
“The night consists of stock car and 360 sprint car racing, with these guys competing in both classes. Our race team has just been invited as one of the few sportsman sprint car teams to round out the field of 360 cars,” Joey said of the event. “It’s going to be a great experience to be on the same track and compete with these guys. Probably once in a lifetime.”
Duperron Racing has been around since 2007, and Joey says that what appeals most to him about sprint car racing is the exhilarating combination of power and speed.
“It’s the fastest, most exciting racing you could watch. The power-to-weight ratio on these cars is greater than a Formula 1 car,” said Joey. “The series I run in, my car weighs 1,600lbs with me in it after the race, that’s the legal weight, and we run about 550 horsepower. The power-to-weight ratio on that is close to three-to-one.”
Joey’s Duperron Racing crew includes locals Brent Lilje, Kris Smith, Don MacDonald, Shawn Kay and Joey Duperron Sr.
“It’s definitely a team sport, you can’t just do it with one person. It takes a lot of people behind the scenes to make it work,” said Joey.
Duperron Racing will return to the track on Aug. 9 and 10, after the Race of Champions at Edmonton’s Castrol Raceway, after which the team will head to Burlington, Washington, for a three-day racing series at Skagit Speedway in September.
“That will be a first for us because we haven’t traveled out of the country yet,” he said.
For a full schedule of race dates for Duperron Racing, visit castrolraceway.ca
