Motorsports: Kelly Blixt can fly ... really!
As we pause this weekend to celebrate the 239th birthday of the United States of America, Kelly Blixt of Helena is preparing to help ensure the freedoms we enjoy as Americans stay in place.
But before he heads for the other side of the pond, he's going to take a a back seat as his 15-year-old son, Kody, races in the Midwest Modified division at the Electric City Speedway. It's Kody's first time in something other than a quarter-midget car.
"It's actually his car," Kelly Blixt, a chief warrant officer in the Montana Army National guard, said Friday night. "He was going to race quarter-midgets again, but he's been saving up and he paid for half of this car, and he's been practicing."
In his first practice at the speedway, Kody hit the wall on Turn 5, and earned the nickname 'Turn 5.'
"(ECS Owner/Manager) Dan Mann gave him permission to race, so he got his restricted license," Kelly said.
Kelly was adjusting the air pressure in Kody's tires, and he explained that it isn't like putting 32 pounds of air in each of the tires on your family car.
"Usually, the tire pressure is fairly low for these tracks," Kelly said. "We run anywhere from 8-14 pounds (per square inch) in all of the tires, and we kind of change it up from tire to tire.
"Typically, with the heat buildup, the tires will expand. It's good for grip as well."
A stock car racer for five years, Blixt will be deployed to Afghanistan in a few days, his second deployment there. Normally, he'd be racing, but in Afghanistan, he'll be flying a C-12 fixed-wing passenger transport for 9-12 months.
"I used to fly Chinooks until last August," Kelly said. "The C-12 is usually made to fly distinguished visitors, but this will be a reconnaissance deployment."
"What dedication to our country," Mann said. "It's just awesome the dedication he has to America. But he loves racing, too."
So the torch has been passed, something the Blixt family has quite a bit of experience with.
"My wife, my daughter, my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, they'd always come up," Kelly added. "If they didn't like doing it, if it wasn't a family event and fun for everyone, I wouldn't be doing it. We wouldn't race.
"This weekend does mean a lot to me. I'm probably more nervous than my son out there racing. They've pushed our deployment back a couple of times. I was supposed to go to school in a couple of weeks, and that's changed, so I don't know when I'm going to go back to school.
Every sport in the U.S. has it share of patriotism, but stock car racing almost screams of patriotism.
"We do the national anthem at the beginning, we salute the military and their families," Blixt said. "Especially this weekend, with Dan doing the tribute they always do on the Fourth of July, it's very patriotic.
"I've never thought of it not being patriotic."
"We've always had a lot of fun racing on the Fourth," Mann said, "but we do this out of self-defense. There's so many people who'll sit on this hill to watch the fireworks, that we camp up here one night before we started racing and decided that with all the people here, we might as well have a race."
It is an ideal spot, not only to watch the cars go around the 3/8-mile dirt oval, but to watch the fireworks displays from the city, the Voyagers' show at Centene Stadium, and the wannabe pyrotechnicians — the amateurs. In fact, they shut down the racing when the professional shows begin.
"We are almost always done just around fireworks time," Mann added. "If not, we shut the lights off and watch the fireworks."
The Fireball Special weekend continues Saturday night. The gates open at 6, and racing starts at 7:30. And, like Mann said, if they're not done racing, they'll shut off the lights to watch the fireworks.
Tribune Sports Writer Lee Vernoy writes a weekly column about the personalities and places in the Montana motorsports scene that usually appears in Monday editions of the Tribune. Follow him on Twitter at @GFTrib_LVernoy, call him at (406) 791-6569, or email him at lvernoy@greatfallstribune.com.