PUNTA GORDA, FL :: While racing season has come to an end for much of the country, it’s only getting started down in Southwest Florida.

Three Palms Speedway, located in Punta Gorda, Florida, is giving race fans in the region an early Christmas present by hosting an exhibition race on December 20th.  That exhibition will feature nine divisions of racing.

“We’re absolutely thrilled,” Three Palms Speedway Vice President Andy Haase said.  “We’re huge racing fans and we’re in dire need to hear some stock car noises going around our speedway.”

Because the grandstands have not yet been installed, the track is dubbing the event “Bring Your Own Seat Racing” and pricing General Admission tickets at $5.  Haase said they hope to have the grandstands installed by early January so they can get the regular season underway.

“We will have them up shortly.  We just hit a few more snags with the county in getting approval to get those installed.  We thought this would be a fun way to give the fans a Christmas present for hanging in there with us.  We’ll have them installed by early-January.”

Once the grandstands are installed, they will get underway with racing on a regular basis.

“We’re looking to pretty much start kicking off racing shortly.  We’re waiting to see when the grandstands will go up but we’ll kick off the first part of January to mid-January and we’ll be racing full-time.  We’ll be a year-round track.  We’ll rarely close down.”

Haase said that the track would run a limited schedule during August and September, which are traditionally the months it rains the most in Florida.  Instead of racing every week, they will race every other week during the mid-summer months.

The December 20th race will feature racing action for the Outlaw 4s, Young Guns 4s, Bombers, Super Stocks, Thunder Trucks, Dwarf Cars, Legends, TQ Midges and Rookie Pro Trucks.  Heat races will begin at 3pm and the feature races will begin at 6pm.

Haase said that, when the track returns to full-time racing in early 2015, they will run races for the Super Late Model, Sportsman, Modified and Thunder Truck divisions on a rotating schedule allowing each division to race once a month.

As reconstruction efforts have continued, the track has been holding drifting events on a regular basis.

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More information about Three Palms Speedway can be found on their website and on their Facebook page.