Make A Wish Event Recap – Enid, Oklahoma

Enid, OK – On Thursday March 25th Checkered Flag Productions teamed up with the legendary Dan Runte and his Bigfoot monster truck and with the Make A Wish Foundation of Oklahoma to put on a special event for a very special little guy – Chandlar Meacham.

Chandlar’s parents had only told him that they had a surprise for him – but they left the details for later.  At 6pm Dan and his Summit Bigfoot monster truck greeted Chandlar and friends and family at Mazzio’s Pizza in Enid, Oklahoma.  As the truck roared to life the excitement began to build in Chandlar until he couldn’t contain himself any longer.  Once the truck was situated and parked Chandlar raced over to see it along with his friends and family.  Autographs were signed and photos were taken for over an hour, to say that Chandlar and his friends had a blast would be a total understatement. Dan and Team Bigfoot also brought a gift pack for Chandlar that had a t-shirt and toy truck of Dan’s Bigfoot with it.

After an hour or so Chandlar had worked up enough of an appetite to leave the truck for awhile and everyone headed inside for the Pizza Party.  8 pizzas of various varieties and 27 soft drinks were ordered up and handed out to the entire group.  We’d like to thank Mazzio’s for working with us and our large group, and also for having some darn tasty pizza that everyone enjoyed.

Unfortunately, even the best of times must come to an end and Bigfoot had to be loaded and returned to the arena before dark to remain in compliance with local wide-loading laws.  There was heartfelt goodbye as well as a few final photos and autographs.  It was a hard scene to leave, but it was known by all that we had to go.

Later in the night we received this email from Tiffany, Chandlar’s mom:

—————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Thank you so much, words really cannot express the amount of gratitude my husband and I have for you and Dan and all at Checkerflag productions.  This was the best gift my son could have received.  As soon as we were home, he wanted to play with his new monster truck then ran and got his others lining them all up.  Hopefully the pictures come through and again thank you, thank you, thank you.  It was wonderful.

Thanks and bless you all!
The Meacham Family
Tiffany, Chad, and Chandlar

—————————————————————————————————————————————————-

We would like to take this chance to say Thank you to the Meacham Family as well.  We had a great time and it is always great to meet and make that personal contact with a great family and a wonderful little guy like Chandlar.

Thursday March 25th 3 Kids in 3 States with BIGFOOT

This week after alot of hard work from Kurt Workman here in our CFP office and my right arm Zane Rettew we have 3 kids that will be involved in Make A Wish Monster Truck parties with Team BIGFOOT.

BAD BOY Larry Swim is in New Mexico, Hot Rod Tweety is in Washington, and Dyno Dan Runte is in Oklahoma and on Thursday all are making a kid smile and maybe give hope and show them we care.

Of course all of them and their families will get the VIP treatment at our shows this weekend. We will make sure they have Tshirts and plenty of autographs and they will be one of the freestyle judges also.

Hopefully when the shows are done, the dirt is out of the building, the cars are back in the junk yard, and teams are heading down the road those kids still have a smile on their faces.

All we can do is hope and pray that next year when we come back those kids have found a miracle and get well.

Thanks to Bob Trent, Bob Chandler, the entire BIGFOOT crew and these drivers for giving their own personal time and effort to make 3 more dreams come true.

For me, the owner of the corporation, this is so rewarding – there really are no words to describe what I feel.

If the shows are bank busters and we sell out every show, it will mean no more to me than what is happening on Thursday in 3 different states this week. I am so proud of our CFP Crew and to be involved in this endeavor.

Ed Beckley
Checkered Flag Productions

CFP, Bounty Hunter and Make a Wish team up in Billings, Montana

On Friday, March 19th the Bounty Hunter monster truck was awake and roaring ahead of schedule, but car crushing and catching air was not on the agenda.  Instead, with the help of the Make a Wish Foundation – CFP and Darren Migues the driver of Bounty Hunter were setting out to make a dream come true for a very special little boy.

Gavin Maxwell, age 5, was given the surprise of a lifetime as he was getting out of school on Friday.  He and his family were met with the flashing lights of a tow-truck convoy and the Bounty Hunter monster truck which was unloaded and fired up, where it then drove to the front door to greet Gavin and family.  Gavin was elated and the smile on his face was infectious, spreading to everyone in attendance.  Gavin was given a Bounty Hunter toy truck, as well as an autographed photo by Migues – and the family will be the special guests of Checkered Flag Productions at Saturday night’s show at MetraPark in Billings.

After some time for chatting and a Class Photo with Bounty Hunter the truck was loaded back onto the flatbed and Gavin was given a ride home from school with the Bounty Hunter monster truck. There is no doubt who had the sweetest ride in town after school on that day!
_________________________________________________________________________
This email from Gavin’s mom Shay from later in the night after the event really says it all:

Thank-you.  What a priceless afternoon.  Gavin has not stopped talking about Bounty Hunter or stopped smiling since we saw him.  He is even in the bathtub right now playing monster truck with the truck he received today.

I can’t tell you how awesome this was!!  Everybody was amazing to work with.  They even let him do a class picture in front of the truck.

Thanks again,

Shay Maxwell
__________________________________________________________________________

With the help of Make a Wish Foundations and Special Olympics chapters all across the country – Checkered Flag Productions has been working to make wishes and dreams come true for some very special kids for more than a decade, and the results always speak for themselves and justify the extra effort that it takes to make these events happen.

For coverage of our Make a Wish event in Billings please check out the following links:

http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/vmix_fd6d1a40-33a3-11df-b359-001cc4c03286.html

http://www.kulr8.com/news/local/88697577.html

http://www.ktvq.com/news/5-year-old-receives-a-monster-surprise/

CFP Crew Member Status Update

Veteran announcer and CFP crew member Ken Dickinson was injured in an accident during the Friday night event in Charlottesville, Virginia.  Dickinson was attended to immediately by on-site EMTs and was transported to University of Virginia Medical Center.  He is currently in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery from his injuries.  Ken and his family send their sincere gratitude for all the calls, prayers and well wishes they’ve received and stated that they feel lucky to be involved in an industry full of such great people.

The entire Checkered Flag Productions family sends our best wishes to our friend Ken for a full and speedy recovery.  All event personnel will be undergoing a thorough review of event safety procedures and every effort will be made to ensure that such an accident is prevented in the future.

Enter CFP Races With Online Registration

So you want to be in the races that is part of the CFP tour?  Well it just got easier with our all new on-line registration.

Whether it’s pre-entering our Arenacross Races, Mud Bogs, Flat Track, Tuff Trucks, Demo Derby, or other fun stuff that we do as part of our shows you can now enter on-line here on this site.  Just click here to access the entry blank.  Before you start entering you should confide in the entry blank for that particular race to be sure the classes and events are part of that weekends shows.  Very important to fill out the blanks with the correct information.

Please follow these steps:
1.  Pull the race up on the schedule you want to enter.
2.  Study the flyer and make sure your desired classes are open for entry.
3.  Fill the blanks out with your class and then make sure you enter for multiple classes for mulitple days.
Example:  Friday night needs an entry and Saturday nights needs to be filled out also if you are racing both days.
4.  Make sure you put your phone numbers down (daytime number preferably) so we can get ahold of you with any questions or problems.
5.  If you have any problems call our office 940-683-4742 during business hours 9am-5pm Central Time.

City of Dodge City / Ed Beckley ‘09 World of Outlaw Promoter of the Year

(Concord, NC – www.WorldofOutlaws.com) Dodge City, Kansas has been synonymous with Outlaws for well over the last 100 years and for the last six last consecutive racing seasons, a different breed of Outlaws have roared into the Old West with 850-horsepower, fire breathing winged sprint cars, as the World of Outlaws have been slinging mud at the state-of-the art Dodge City Raceway Park and thrilling fans since 2004.

For their dedication to the annual Boot Hill Showdown at Dodge City Raceway Park and continued support of the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, the City of Dodge City, Kansas and Ed Beckley, the General Manager of the facility (and owner of Checkered Flag Productions) were named the 2009 World of Outlaws Promoter of the Year recently during the series Champions Banquet in Concord, North Carolina.

This really means a lot to Dodge City, Ford County and all the folks involved here, said Beckley.  The World of Outlaws puts on the best show in dirt track racing all over the United States and to receive this honor is big. It shows one thing, that when you have a good crew working with you, it makes the captain of the ship look good.

In the Boot Hill Showdown this past June, not only did the best sprint car drivers in the world battle each other, but that had to battle Mother Nature on a couple of occasions. The night before the race a storm with 5 inches of raing and golf ball sized hail hit Western Kansas, taking its toll on a couple of the teams race rigs and merchandise trailers that were parked in the pit area early. The finale of the two-day event was completed in the wee hours on Sunday morning after a couple of rain delays and a downpour led to the track crew pulling out all stops to get the racing surface back in shape and the show completed.

While most promoters would have probably thrown in the towel after a couple of rain delays and a track that looked more suitable for mud bogging rather than sprint car racing, Beckley, who was a long time motorcycle jumper and legend of that sport and has never backed down from a challenge was bound and determined to complete the show for all of the diehard fans that were still in the grandstands hours after they first took their seats under sunny skies. “After a rain delay from 9:02pm till 1 am the WOO officials came on the radio and asked me how soon I could get it ready. I said 45 minutes if we have no more rain, and 42 minutes later the first sprint car was bumped off for hot laps at nearly 1:30am, I think we hitched a ride on a miracle that night.”  The blazing fast track was back in racing shape and the show was completed.

It started with tornadoes and massive hail on Thursday night before the first race and when the drivers got there, it looked like a swamp, explained Beckley. Nobody thought we would be able to get the track ready for Friday night after that storm. WOO officials were doubting if I could make the track hard enough so it could be raced on. We ended adding water to it the first day when getting it ready. It’s just one of those deals where everyone gave it all they had and it all worked out.

Dodge City Raceway Park was built in 2000 as an asphalt track and was converted to a dirt track in 2004, the same year that the World of Outlaws made their debut at the beautiful facility. It is one of the only tracks on the World of Outlaws circuit, which traditionally visits around 50 speedways a season that has a fully paved pit area, which gives the crews a flat and solid surface to work on as they prepare their machines. In addition the track has an elevator that leads to the top of the spacious aluminum grandstands and the press box. There is also an elevator that services the pit grandstand which sits elevated in the middle of turn 3 and 4. Dodge City Raceway Park also has some of the best lighting on the circuit, with the cameras from SPEED taking full advantage of that to tape both night of action again this past season.

The City and County has spent a lot of money on the track and made it happen, he noted. It’s a beautiful facility and it could be at home in any major city in this country, but its home is here in Dodge City and why not have it in Dodge City. The people here feel like it’s their race track and they support it. We have great fans here and even sold tickets to people from Australia this year. They came here and liked it and liked the old Dodge City way. When people see good racing and have a good time, that’s what keeps them coming back.

Joey Saldana became the first multi-time winner at the track in 2008 and backed that up by winning both nights of the Boot Hill Showdown this season. The native of Brownsburg, Indiana, who was the winningest driver on the World of Outlaws circuit this season, now has four career wins at Dodge City Raceway Park, which he lists as one of his favorites stops over the course of the season.

This is a great facility and you are lucky to have it, so support it every week, said Saldana after his win at the Dodge City on June 12. Hopefully we’ll get the chance to come back next year and for many years to come.

Saldana will in fact get that chance, as Beckley is proud to announce that the World of Outlaws will return for a seventh consecutive season to Dodge City Raceway Park in June of 2010 for the Boot Hill Showdown. Since the World of Outlaws first visit to the track in 2004, in an event won by 20-time series champion Steve Kinser, six different drivers have been victorious there, including four-time reigning champion Donny Schatz, who holds the track record at Dodge City, Jason Meyers who finished second in points this year, 2001 series titlist Danny Lasoski and Daryn Pittman.

We got right to it and secured our dates (June 11-12, 2010) and will work hard all winter preparing for the event, noted Beckley. We’re adding a Media Day and a practice session the night before. We’ll have a big Western Party and it will be a good time. We are very excited for it.

The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series is brought to fans across the country by many important sponsors and partners, including: Armor All (Official Car Care Products), Crane Cams (Official Valvetrain), Hoosier Racing Tires (Official Racing Tires), Fusion Energy Boost (Official Energy Boost), Quaker State (Official Motor Oil), SuperClean (Official Cleaner-Degreaser), VP Racing (Official Racing Fuel); in addition to contingency sponsors, Jake’s Custom Golf Carts, KSE Race Products, Penske Shocks, Racing Electronics, S&S Volvo; Engine Builder’s Challenge participants Don Ott Racing Engines, Kistler Engines, Shaver Specialties and Speedway Engines; and Chassis Builder’s Challenge participants J&J Auto Racing, Maxim Racing and XXX Race Company.