Flanders Returns To Irwindale

Bruce Flanders, Legendary Motorsports Announcer Returns To Irwindale Speedway For 2013 Season.

Irwindale, Calif. Feb 2, 2013 - - Bruce Flanders will return as the announcing voice of Irwindale Speedway on Saturday night, April 6, 2013.

That's really enough, but here are a couple more details: After a few years away (and the Speedway at Irwindale Event Center being dark for the 2012 season) the mellifluous voice and wry style of the iconic mikeman Bruce Flanders will once again inform and entertain fans at the San Gabriel Valley speedway.

"We couldn't be more pleased that Bruce is back for our re-opening season," said GM/COO Bob Klein. "Bruce is simply the best there is in this business. He was our voice when we opened in 1999 and it's just great to be able to say that he'll be back with us in April at Irwindale, where he has so many friends and fans."

Pasadena-born, Flanders' announcing credits run from the classic Hangtown motorcycle races to the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach and from Mickey Thompson's stadium off-road races, to being "type cast" in a number of blockbuster movies as, of all things, a racing announcer.

Irwindale Opening Night March 27, 1999 Photo by Long Photography

"There's just something about Bruce's innate sense of the show that just makes it more fun to be a part of a live, on-the-spot audience," said Klein. "He really loves and understands racing; that's evident with everything that he says to the fans. He respects their intelligence, and he's able to make it personal, even when he's talking to 5,000 fans over a racetrack PA system.

Flanders will be aided and abetted at Irwindale by his daughter Megan, who will be up in the booth with him acting as his engineer, key grip, and accomplice in the marvelous magic act that he does in turning stock racing action almost into poetry.

Not much more needed ... Tickets for the track's April 6 opening night and all of the other 2013 NASCAR races at Irwindale Speedway will go on sale on March 1. And, just as he was on opening night in 1999, Bruce Flanders will be there "upstairs" entertaining the fans for each of them ... Right where he belongs.