The roar of the engines will soon be heard at Dead Horse Creek Speedway, and the Valley Motorsports Association is excited to get racing underway again at the track west of Morden.
“We’re still pretty new at this … but we’ve got one season under our belt, and we learned a lot. We’re going to keep at it and continue finding ways to improve it,” said president Chris Unrau. “There was pent up demand here for a long time. There’s a lot of gearheads in this area, and motorsports is hugely popular … people need a place for it.”
The association formed as a not-for-profit corporation in 2023 and took over operation of the former ALH Motor Speedway. It’s made up of a group of grassroots enthusiasts whose mission is to advance motorsports for the enjoyment of the region.
A lot of their efforts last summer focused on revitalizing the track, starting with reshaping and resurfacing it, and there are more improvements being made this year.
“We’ve put quite a bit of time and energy and effort into further improvements to the facility,” said Unrau.
“We’ve got some permanent lighting that’s getting installed. Little Morden Service has come forward to sponsor a lap leaderboard so we can see how many laps remaining in each race and what position are the top four at any time, so that’s really exciting.
“We’re going to have a large LED video screen this year,” he added. “We’re also hoping to move towards some kind of a streaming operation where we would get the races streamed live online … I’m not quite sure when we will get there, but that is a goal.”
Three weekend special events are on tap for 2024.
The McNaught Cadillac Cup will be May 25-26 and will include the attendance of the Northern Late Model Racing Association with a top level of late model competitors.
“That’s the best of the best in the region … the top late model drivers from North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Manitoba,” said Unrau. “It will bring the top competitors and the top high-powered cars. I can’t stress with enough excitement how big of a deal it is to have the NLRA come here to our track.”
The GVE Deere Run will go July 5-6 featuring the Watermelon Cup modified special as well as the Brad Wall Memorial.
Closing out the season then in conjunction with the Corn and Apple Festival is the Proven Seed King of the Corn Aug. 23-24.
“It’s very exciting. We had such a great response from the community last year that we decided to expand a little bit to three race weekends,” said Unrau, noting they are grateful to have all three races fully sponsored.
“The response from the community has been fabulous, and what we hear is that there’s a lot of people planning to come out to these events this year.”
Tickets are on sale at the Gardenland Co-op convenience store locations as well as online. Unrau encouraged people to get their tickets early.
“The sense I get in the community is that there are a lot of people who want to come out.”
More information is available online at deadhorsecreekspeedway.ca.
