Style of racing began here 32 years ago this summer
Nebraska Figure 8 auto racing is coming back to Aurora where it all began more than 30 years ago. The NeFigure8n racing association has announced that it will be bringing its 2024 championships back to the Hamilton County Fairgrounds on Saturday, Aug. 17 because that’s where the style of racing began way back in 1992.
Phillips auctioneer Jamie Bergmark is the current vice president of NeFigure8n and was instrumental in reaching out to the Hamilton County Ag Society to see if the races could be brought back to the fairgrounds for the championship this year in commemoration of their beginnings there. Bergmark has been involved with stock car racing, demolition derbies and figure 8 racing since before he could walk or talk. His father Dwayne and uncle, Mark Wiegert, have been racing since before he was born and he was only a year old when the first figure 8 race was held at the Hamilton County Fair.
“What the older generation tells me was that Aurora had (demolition) derbies and other county fairs had derbies,” he said. “And back in the day, you only got one run out of a car. You’d take your car, you’d strip it, you’d enter in a derby, and you’d destroy it in one day. That was a lot of work just for one time. And they kind of came up with the concept of keeping the rules real similar back then, to where on a Saturday, if you had a figure 8, you could race your car and then easily repair it for the next day when the derby was, so you got two uses out of it. You could race it one night and finish it off the next.”
Bergmark says three fairs hosted figure 8 races that first year—but Aurora was the host of the very first figure 8 race in Nebraska. He said the event grew from there and NeFigure8n was established in 2008 to provide more of an organizational structure for contacting fair boards and scheduling races.
A search of the News-Register newspaper archives at the Plainsman Museum shows the first figure 8 race was held on a Friday night at the 1992 Hamilton County Fair and the demolition derby, where the cars would meet their demise, was held on Sunday evening. The nearly 100-year old grandstand at the fairgrounds at the time could not be used for the races because it had been severely damaged by a wind storm that had hit Aurora on July 8. (Over the next two years it was torn down and replaced by the current grandstand which was dedicated on July 28, 1994 in time to be used for that year’s fair.) A photo from the first race published in the paper after the fair showed two cars, No. 55 sponsored by Baasch & Sons Welding and No. 65 sponsored by Tim Buetner’s Painting & Repair. The caption said the photo depicted the cars swerving “out of the north turn and head(ing) for the mid-point – and near collision with the other racers.”
While the figure 8 races continued to be a favorite part of the fair for many over the next several years, Bergmark said the number of entries and attendance began to drop off at the Hamilton County Fair so the Ag Society eventually decided to drop the event from its schedule. However, with the sport having grown elsewhere, to the point that the association scheduled 11 figure 8 races this July and August in an area ranging from South Sioux City to Weeping Water and Clay Center, Bergmark said he thought it was time to bring the races back where they began.
“We got pretty heavily involved in the racing aspect of it and I got voted on the board as vice president of the NeFigure8n group,” he said. “And I thought, ‘You know what, I’ve always wanted to figure 9 at Aurora. I wanted to get a hold of the fair board and see what they thought about maybe trying to bring us back and they told me their reasons for why they got rid of us a few years ago, and that was completely understandable. But within these few years our group has gotten bigger and our classes have changed to where a beginner can enter the sport a lot easier. And like me and my brother, we always wanted a home track back at Aurora, because we grew up with the figure 8 at Aurora.”
Local figure 8 celebs
Bergmark says besides his father and uncle, several well-known Hamilton County residents were involved in the races in those early days including Bill Gowen, brothers Billy and Mike Wiarda, Jeff and Greg Gimpel, Tom Schroeder and Todd Jensen, former owner of NAPA Auto Parts. Because of Jensen’s involvement, Bergmark says the races were always sponsored by NAPA and this year’s event will be as well.
“So when, when we got together with the Fair Board this past year and decided to make it an event, I went around to the community to see if they’d want to sponsor the event and bring it back, because that’s what they remember at the fair,” Bergmark said. “And one of the places I hit up right away was NAPA, and I tell you what, they’ve been an amazing sponsor. They actually got me in touch with corporate and NAPA corporate is the main sponsor for figure 8 racing throughout Nebraska this year. That’s kind of a nice little kickback to what I remember growing up.”
New classes part of growth
Part of the reason for the growth of the sport across eastern Nebraska, according to Bergmark, has been the addition of more classes for a total of three, which has allowed more people to get involved with the sport.
“So we have an intro class, which is a compact class,” Bergmark said. “Any age can drive in that, 16 all the way up to 99 if you wanted to. Compacts consist of four to six cylinder cars, which are kind of like cars you see out on the street, whether it’s a Chevy Lumina, Chevy Monte Carlo, Toyota Avalon, any of that kind of cars–basic halo roll cage, five-point harness, and we kind of stick with the rules that the Nebraska compact derbies go with. Kind of like back in the old days, you figure 8 race it one night, destroy it the next. That’s a very base entry class and the cheap class to get into. The next class that we have is a V8 class. It’s considered our stock class. They are more of a race car. They have a full cage, they’ve got a locked rear end and bigger motors. They have to pull 17 vacuum on their motors, but they are more hopped up, more of a race car. They’re probably pushing anywhere from 250 to 350 horse. They’re a quick class and there are a lot of a lot of cars in that class. My brother races a mid-80s Malibu station wagon. I’ve got a ‘72 Dodge Dart. Metric GM cars are kind of a favorite out there but we’ve seen some Ford LTDs, your bigger four- and two-door cars of any make or model, for the most part. And then we have an open class or outlaw class, and that’s anything goes. It can be a homemade body. They’re pushing 500 to 600 horse and they don’t even have to look like a car. Some of them have center steer; old disc brakes all the way around. It’s kind of unlimited, whatever you want to do to it.”