The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

SEEKONK, Mass. It was not Sparky Arsenault’s night at the Francis Farm Mid-Season Championships at the Seekonk Speedway on Saturday.

The former champion in the Seekonk Speedway Street Stock Division was taken out of his qualifying race when a rear right tire blew on his white 1970 Chevrolet Camaro (#96) after a tangle with two other cars.

“It’s got a bent rim, that’s another $150 out the window,” he said, looking down at the damaged wheel. “I was battling for a place to go and there was nowhere to go.”

Then the power switch went off in the consolation race, leaving him high and dry on the track and needing to be pushed off the course.

As a result, Arsenault, 47, the Seekonk Speedway Street Stock Division Champion in 2002 and 2007, slipped to second place in the standings behind Paul Lallier. There are nearly 40 drivers in the division and about 20 races in the season, which is about half over.

“Sometimes you have good nights and sometimes you have bad nights,” he said. “Tonight was not a good night.”

To diehard fans, stock car racing on short tracks such as the one at Seekonk is nitty-gritty racing, where biffing and banging are part of the fun, and truer to the roots of NASCAR racing. Certainly, with prize money limited and nowhere close to covering costs, everyone involved — the drivers and their crews — is in it for the love of the sport.

And with the short tracks being mostly bends — the track at Seekonk is one-third mile — the reduced speeds may not limit crashes, but they do limit injuries.

Gail Pangelinan, the track’s office manager, agreed that for many fans, short track racing is the real thing.

“For some people, this is as close as they can afford to get,” she added, noting that a seat at a NASCAR race might run $100 compared to about $12 for most events at Seekonk.

Saturday evening featured races in four American Racing Club (ARC) divisions — Street Stock, Sport Truck, Late Model and Pro Stock. Each division had a series of qualifying heats followed by a featured race of 25 laps for Street Stock and Sport Truck, 35 laps for Late Model and 45 laps for Pro Stock. Street Stock also had a consolation race for drivers who did not make it to the featured race.

Overall, fans got to see nearly 15 races, with cars “trading paint” as they jostled for position as the tight pack packed thundered around the track. Crashes were not uncommon.

“The front tire, the front tire!” yelled someone in the crowd during the Street Stock featured race. “Here we go, now we got some sport!”

One car’s front tire had indeed gone and it was skidding out of control to the smell of burning rubber and the smacking sounds of cars hitting each other. Up went the yellow caution flag, out came the pace car and the tow trucks barreled out of a siding to clean up the mess.

Street Stock cars and Sport Trucks are modified street vehicles with limited sponsorship (Arsenault is sponsored by McGlashing Construction). They tend to be very banged up, with flat, reinforced rear ends so they can be easily pushed off the track. They also have short chain handles in the front and rear for easy towing.

“I try not to know,” said Arsenault when asked how much he spends on his racing.

Late Model and Pro Stock are considerably more powerful and more expensive. The bodies appear more like NASCAR racers, with extensive paintwork, fewer dings and more sponsor decals.

Arsenault’s daughter Amy races in the entry level Pure Stock division (which was not racing Saturday) where the cars are closer to street cars, complete with regular tires and gasoline. The insides are reinforced with roll bars, but Amy said she does little work to the car between races.

Arsenault’s son Jay, 24, who works with his father in the service department of Volkswagen of North Attleboro, races in the Sport Truck Division with a partner, Jason Heroux, 24, an engineer, who was racing Saturday. The two take turns at the wheel of their 1996 Chevrolet S10 truck (#96).

An additional member of ARH Racing (formally The Arsenault Racing Team), Lou Robinson, is in the process of buying a car and racing in the Pure Stock Division, Amy Arsenault said.

On Saturday, Heroux fared little better than Sparky Arsenault, spinning out at the end of his qualifying race and coming in last.

“(The other car) just rubbed me a little and I was trying to save it,” Heroux said. “It happens — it’s not the first time. There’s always next week. You can’t let it take you down.”

As it turned out, with a limited field, he was able to drive the team’s bronze truck with white nose in the featured race. Although he finished the race, like Sparky he dropped a place in the standings to 10th out of some 25 drivers.

“There’s something wrong with the steering,” he said as he stood next to the truck after the race, dripping with sweat. “It’s been a rough night, it’s not usually this bad.”

Amy Arsenault, 22, races a 1986 Monte Carlo in the Seekonk Speedway Pure Stock Division. She has had three Pure Stock featured race wins and currently ranks sixth in the division. She said she misses “three to four races a year” because she is away at the University of South Carolina at Charlotte.

Like her father and brother, racing is in her blood. She said she moved to Charlotte to be in the thick of NASCAR country. She said her boyfriend is a member of a racing pit crew and she is majoring in marketing and public relations with a view to working for NASCAR.

“You can’t let it take you down,” she said of the team’s disappointing evening, noting that all the members of the team had won their share of races and championships — and would do so again.

For more information, go to:

Seekonkspeedway.com

pelsworth@projo.com