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Sun

Volume 8, Number 52 | February 2, 2017

Speedway designer Jim Stokes (left) and Clay Center director Angela Bruno (right) put some cars through their paces while board member Annie Bell (center) plans for the fundraiser. Photo by Will Grandbois

Flag goes up at ‘Stokes Speedway’ By Will Grandbois Sopris Sun Staff Writer For the first and potentially only time, the “Stokes Speedway” will be open to the public on Feb. 4 for a special Carbondale Clay Center fundraiser. Sponsored by the Stokes family, Carbondale Clay Center, Carbon-

dale Homeless Assistance and Marble Distillery, the event runs from 4 to 7 p.m. at Blue Creek Ranch (3220 CR 100, just down the way from Catherine Store) and gives locals a chance to race slot cars on the track that took Jim Stokes more than two years to build. There’s also a petting zoo with miniature

goats, a donkey and a pig, as well as a fire pit with s’mores and a winter coat drive. It’s intended for ages 5 and up with attentive parental supervision required. Advanced tickets are required (call 963-2529) and run $25 per family or $15 for a solo adult. Grownups who want a little more track time can stick around ’til 9 p.m. by joining the racer club for $50. “I’m really excited for the community to see this place and incredibly grateful to Jim for opening it up,” said Clay Center Director Angela Bruno. “I feel like anyone who

walks through the door is going to be blown away and inspired. There are so many layers of talent at work. You could stare at it for hours and still see something new.”

Stoking the creative spark It’s an event a decade in the making for Stokes, a lifelong creator but a relative newcomer to the slot car hobby. Already a woodworker when he moved to the area to raise a family in 1992, he ran across his first car at a hobby shop. “It’s just sort of brought me back to being a kid,” he said. “I like

the combination of design and engineering, and cars sort of epitomize that.” By the time he moved to his current home off Catherine Store Road 13 years ago, he had some practice in building tracks, but the newest speedway is something of a magnum opus. The loops are optimized to be both challenging and fun to drive, with intricately rendered spectators, mountains and more. Underneath it all is a network of wiring that is a marvel unto itself. “Each track has become inSPEEDWAY page 17


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