RIP Charlie Beard

Irwindale Event Center and Team 211 Entertainment are saddened to acknowledge the passing Charlie Beard, the primary owner of Kern County Raceway Park in Bakersfield. 

"His enthusiasm and great pride in the KCRP project was evident from the first day that we met," said IEC/211 CEO Jim Cohan. "Charlie piled us all into his SUV and off we went, right up on to the high groove of the raceway over looking turn 2. It was a little bit of an adventure getting up there, but Charlie thought that it would give us the best sense of the project. He really loved that place!"

Beard, a local businessman who originally had visited the track to enquire about leasing a luxury suite for his company's use and who very quickly found himself a vital part of the ownership team, died this past Saturday after a short illness. His passing was received with very heavy hearts when it was announced at the beginning of Saturday night's Spears SRL Southwest Tour race at his track.

"I did not get involved in this to be a race guy, I got involved in the dang thing by buying that suite up there and then started building buildings here (the race car shops adjacent to the track) then got to seeing how slow it was going," Beard had said in an Bakersfield Californian article written about the opening of the track some three years ago. Beard's joining the ownership team shifted the project into high gear and quickly got it moving ahead to completion.

Even though he claimed not to be a "race guy", Beard quickly became totally involved with the original oval track project and continued to improve the track's offerings ... shepherding the addition of a motocross track and a very popular dirt track thus broadening and adding to the appeal of the facility.

"He had a vision and he really loved putting on these events," Track President/GM Lee Baumgartner was quoted as saying in the Bakersfield Californian. "He'll surely be missed for that. He was the catalyst that held us all together. He liked to get his hands dirty and be right there in the planning and then the construction of any project. He was right there up front, loving every minute of it."

And about the track itself and its future, Baumgartner was further quoted as saying: "It's not going anywhere ... it won't affect the operation. He (meaning Charlie) would not even want it to slow down. He'd be disappointed that we even stumbled and slowed down. He had a great heart. We just loved him. He'll be really missed."

September 27 Celebrity Stock Car Race Announced

Stars Will Race to Benefit Wounded Warrior Project®

Eleven well-known names in the entertainment world are about to suit up, strap on helmets, and buckle into 450-horsepower, NASCAR-style stock cars. This special celebrity race will take place at Irwindale Speedway, located about 25 miles East of Hollywood.

Set for the evening of Saturday, September 27 and benefiting Wounded Warrior Project®, celebrities from television, sports, and film will be racing identical S2, tube-framed, fiberglass-bodied stock cars, each powered by a full race 450-horsepower V-8 engine.

This special celebrity race is the feature event for a night of championship NASCAR racing on the wide, fast, banked Irwindale oval. Scheduled to put pedals to the metal on the 27th are:

• Corbin Bleu - "High School Musical," "Dancing With the Stars"
• Matt D'Andria - GQ's "Car Collectors," Co-Host "Car Cast"
• Brett Davern - MTV's "Awkward"
• Doug Fregin - Co-founder Research In Motion, makers of BlackBerry
• Brian Austin Green - "Anger Management," "Beverly Hills, 90210"
• Mark-Paul Gosselaar - "Franklin & Bash," "Saved by the Bell"
• Tricia Helfer - "Battlestar Galactica," "Killer Women"
• Nathan Kress - "iCarly," "Into The Storm"
• Mark Kriski - KTLA 5 Meteorologist
• Tito Ortiz - former UFC Champion, Hall of Famer
• Erik Valdez - "Graceland," "General Hospital"

"We really have an all-star 'cast' for this race," said track President /CEO Jim Cohan. "We truly appreciate all of the celebrities' personal commitments to making this a great event for Wounded Warrior Project®. There are no stand-ins or stunt doubles for this one. Each of these celebrities have put in many hours of training and practice on the racetrack here at Irwindale," he went on. "They're all learning that controlling a fast stock car on a fast race course like this one is a complex job ... they're learning their 'lines' well!"

The special celebrity charity event will be part of a full night of NASCAR racing that will see racing machines from the very smallest with Universal Studios Hollywood Bandoleros (starting age to race is 8 years old), to the Lucas Oil Late Models, Irwindale Race Trucks, Super Stocks, Seidner's Collision Centers Mini-Stocks, and the INEX Legend Cars.

About Wounded Warrior Project®

Wounded Warrior Project is recognizing its ten-year anniversary, reflecting on a decade of service and reaffirming its commitment to serving injured veterans for their lifetime.The mission of Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP) is to honor and empower Wounded Warriors. WWP currently serves more than 54,000 warriors and 7,500 family members through its unique 20 programs and services. WWP's purpose is to raise awareness and to enlist the public's aid for the needs of injured service members, to help injured servicemen and women aid and assist each other, and to provide unique, direct programs and services to meet their needs. WWP is a national organization headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. To get involved and learn more, visit woundedwarriorproject.org.

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.

The Return of Irwindale!

Team 211 Entertainment Announces Return of Oval Track Racing Events to Irwindale Speedway for 2013

Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Image

Irwindale, Calif. (December 17, 2012): "We're very pleased to announce that oval track racing will return to Irwindale for the 2013 season."  With that direct statement, Team 211 Entertainment's President/CEO Jim Cohan ended a long 11-month period of uncertainty about regular racing competition at the well-known Southern California motorsports and family entertainment facility.

"Our master lease with the property owners, Nu-Way Industries, has been broadened and now includes all forms of racing activities on the 6,500-seat twin oval track. We are now working very hard to put all of the pieces together to be able to run a 2013 racing season," said Cohan.

"Our company name has the word 'TEAM' in it," he pointed out. "We need everyone to understand that name is not an affectation. It's a statement of our commitment to the process of re-building the legacy of Irwindale Speedway."

"We've re-named the entire property 'Irwindale Event Center' to better reflect the wide range of public and private events that can be accommodated here and invite everyone to join us in what we feel will be a great new era of operation for this venue.

Corporations, businesses small and large, competitors, individual fans, everyone: you are all welcome, if you want to be a part of this facility, we'll find a place for you." Cohan concluded.

Cohan's announcement also indicated that long-time employee Bob Klein has been named the event center's Vice President/Chief Operating Officer, and that veteran publicist Doug Stokes would be re-joining the facility on the first of the year as the Vice President of Communications. Both men will report directly to Jim Cohan.

At the same time, experienced competition manager Mike Atkinson was named the track's Race Director. Atkinson has been working behind the scenes with representatives of the new Kern County Raceway Park track to put together a common set of technical rules which will allow racers in a number of divisions to compete fairly at both tracks.

"We know that we're starting out a couple of laps behind," Cohan candidly admitted. "But we also know that we have the support of a great number of former racers, sponsors, and most importantly, our fans who have stood by waiting for this track to come back on line again. We'll really need everyone's good will and support, and we'll be trying very hard to return the favor by running a facility that always puts the customer first."

A 2013 oval track competition event schedule will be published shortly.

For more information:

Doug Stokes

(626) 391-3772

stokescommunications@earthlink.net