Saturday, September 24 - After leaving Speedworld we traveled south of Phoenix to Chandler, the home of the Firebird Raceway. We arrived at 2:47 for the scheduled 3 PM start and this organization was right on time which is one thing we appreciate from the road racing contingent. This facility has numerous road courses on the grounds in addition to an off-road dirt course and a lake for boat racing. Today the ProAutoSports group was in town to race on the new configuration named the Mondo course. The Mondo course is a 2.5 mile course using portions of the Main course and the Bondurant East course. It looked like a challenging course with many turns and esses but the Yellow group running their 20 minute race only had seven entrants running together under two classes, the EFF and the CFR entries with seven different models racing. Kelly Gallant was the class of the field running times 12 seconds faster than the second fastest car.

As expected Gallant had the lead halfway through the second circuit and literally ran away from the rest of the field. In fact he lapped the entire field at the 18 minute mark but pulled pitside as he crossed the line with two to go. It had to be a big disappointment for the high flying Gallant but the race does not always go to the swiftest. The race actually went 23 minutes with Pat counting off every minute in the last five minute period. The second fastest car driven by Camren Kaminsky inherited the lead and led the final two circuits. He crossed the line first followed by Rex Liu Sr. and Tom Cuevas. It was not the most exciting of races but it was a new track nonetheless. It was only one of two countable races on the day with the other going off at 2:10.

We were headed for the exit by 3:30 satisfied with the knowledge that another new track was registered. But we were not done racing for the day yet with another venue to witness in the evening. Come back in the next day or two to read about our Saturday night adventure.