A family affair

Wes and Nancy Wallace have seen their share of racers come and go during their 26 years of owning and operating Capitol Speedway in Willow. A family business, each weekend the track also becomes a home away from home for the families of regular racecar drivers.

Names like Cutway, Steinenger, Evans, Mingo and Baker -- a name that has practically become synonymous with mini-stocks in Alaska -- can be heard often at the track. For most of these families racing is more than a weekend hobby.

Father and son James and Bud Jordan, along with nephew Steven Brotzman, for instance, are all racing in the same class this year. Husband and wife Jeff and Darla Evans both race in the modified lite class, often with grandchildren back in the stands. Eleven-year-old David Mingo, and Jennifer Mingo, 13, children of racer Dan and wife Kristy, can be found above the track's tower, filming each weekend event for the Wallaces, or cleaning up the grounds after the races.

And for Terry Bundtrock, owner of Terry's Auto in Wasilla, going to Capitol Speedway is basically a family outing each weekend.

"Where other people go fishing or something, we go to the racetrack," he said. But the Bundtrock-Haxton clan doesn't just sit in the stands and watch -- they either race or they work on cars.

Bundtrock began racing in the sportsman class at Capitol in 1992, after moving from Montana where he raced. Known for the "Purple People Eater" he drives, he and wife Debbie have seven children between them, and all are either currently or have been involved with racing in some capacity at Capitol.

Bundtrock, who has won the track championship twice, built and sponsors six of the cars currently racing at the track and sponsors three more, he said. This season his son Justin Haxton is running a stock car and daughter Brittney is pitting for her boyfriend, Dustin McCurdy, who is running in the hobby class. Son Brandon is on hand to help in the pits or herd the grandkids, who are sometimes there more often than their parents, Debbie said.

Between jobs, family and home, the hobby of weekend stock-car racing can be taxing on both budget and family life, but for the Bundtrock clan, it seems, oil is in their veins.

"I'm raising a racing family," Bundtrock said, smiling.