A Glance at Derby Tech Day

The 54th Annual Snowball Derby week began in earnest on Wednesday at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, FL with Tech Day.

The calm of a mostly empty speedway was dashed away with the arrival of the Snowball Derby and Snowflake 100 team haulers, all cramming into what becomes a very tight space over the next five days.

The haulers comprising over 100 entries among Pro and Super Late Models entered the famed half-mile facility and under the direction of Chief Technical Inspector Ricky Brooks and his crew of officials.

Not all haulers are the same style or size. While there is a vast amount of rigs coming from the NASCAR or ARCA worlds, the majority of haulers were of the “stacker trailer” design.

Still, there is a bit of an awe factor that is associated with seeing the biggest rigs enter the speedway, especially when its a brand new and freshly wrapped tractor and trailer combo for drivers like Phoenix Racing’s Jake Finch.

And the chaos of rig parking wouldn’t be complete without a smaller, more compact sized setup rolling through in and among the see of 53 foot trailers and stackers, such as Bobby Reuse, brining one of the Adventures in Racing cars into the infield.

Some, like NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Carson Hocevar, found a way to relax at bit before the chaos unfolded.

The chaos of Tech Day really began once promoter Tim Bryant released the teams to open their haulers and extract their cars.

From then on until past 5pm, a steady stream of cars made their way to the tech shed at Five Flags Speedway.

The process in tech inspection took a while to complete, but that’s because Ricky Brook’s “Room of Doom” is the most thorough in motorsports. In a sport where exploitation of the “grey” areas of the rulebook is common place, at the Snowball Derby there is only black and white and with that mindset, a car either passes, or it does not.

Once teams completed the arduous task that is the initial trip through the tech shed, the loaded up the machines and set their sights on the next big day at the Derby… practice day.