For Immediate Release

Contact: Phil Henry 702-456-9660

Phenry@phenry.com

informs@silverstateclassic.com

--photos available at address above--

Record Entries Follow 207-mph Record-setting Pace at Open Highway Event

The starting grid is full at 230 entries for the 90-mile Silver State Classic Challenge road event to be held on Nevada Highway 318 Sunday, September 17.

“I’m missing it already, missing the adrenaline rush,” record-holder Chuck Shafer said about the upcoming Silver State Classic Challenge open highway event. The Oregon racer set a 207-mph record average speed for the 90-mile course last May, but plans to sit out the September 17 edition of the state-sanctioned highway event. “We’re kind of taking a break this fall, resting on our laurels.”

But the extraordinary record Shafer set hasn’t deterred new drivers’ enthusiasm. In fact, it seems to have sparked overwhelming interest in the event, since all 230 grid positions for the September event were filled almost immediately following the May edition of the event, according to event organizers. There are currently more than 40 entries on a waiting list for the September event. Organizers were surprised by the flood of entries, but are holding to the 230-car limit as a comfortably manageable size, they say. In addition, nearly all of the local hotel rooms and restaurants at the event headquarters in the small rustic town of Ely are filled during the event weekend already. The event has run since 1988, and has had drivers from 38 states, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, England, Saudi Arabia, and Japan.

Corvettes are the favored machines for the competition—there are at least 50 per event--which pits drivers against the clock on closed Highway 318 between the small towns of Lund and Hiko, Nevada. Each event also boasts as many as two dozen Porsches and Vipers, and there’s also a core group of vintage Panteras that have traditionally challenged the course. Chuck Shafer’s record was set in a former NASCAR Busch series racer powered by a Mopar engine and covered by a Chrysler LeBaron body.

Perennial open road event driver Dave Golder races a modified Winston Cup stock car, from the stables of the Tony Stewart Home Depot NASCAR team, while several Corvette-bodied racers from the Trans-Am road-racing series are also strong 200-mph unlimited class challengers.

The racers are mostly amateurs, though appearances by celebrity drivers such as John Schneider, a.k.a. Bo Duke, are crowd pleasers. Schneider ran a replica of the “General Lee” Dodge Challenger at the ’99 event.

Events begin Thursday September 14 at the Showboat Hotel and Casino on the Boulder Strip in Las Vegas, with driver qualifying at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. On Friday, September 15, cars are paraded 245 miles north to Ely. This trip is an excellent photo opportunity of the cars on the road. Saturday, September 16, is a parc ferme at the Ely high school football field, where all of the race cars will be on public display. At 5 a.m. Sunday morning, September 17, Highway 318 is closed to the public, and at 8 a.m. the cars are scheduled to start.

There’s no cash prize fund, but the winner in the unlimited class is immortalized on a perpetual trophy that resides in the state’s captial, Carson City.

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