Travis Milburn, Kart Idaho Racing Gearing Up For Home Race

The upcoming K&N Pro Series West race at Meridian Speedway is the home race for Kart Idaho Racing in more ways than one.

Not only will their hometown fans be in attendance for the race on Saturday night, but it will also mark the opening of Kart Idaho, a new 11-turn go-kart facility located in Eagle, Idaho, primarily managed by Travis Milburn.

“Meridian is definitely one of the two races we had circled on the schedule,” Milburn told NASCAR.com. “This one and Roseville are we feel our best two shots at doing really well.”

Milburn and company have been working on the go-kart facility for almost a year, and is looking forward to getting the word out.

“Having all our fans we have from home, it should be a really good race for us to use as promotion opening up the kart track,” he said. “There‘s a lot of good things about it, even if the race doesn‘t go well there‘ll be some positives to come out from it.”

The new state of the art facility will host an exhibition event on Saturday morning aroud 9 a.m. PDT. On the docket will be three separate races: crew chiefs racing against each other, officials racing against each other and K&N Pro Series drivers doing the same.

The top finishers from each race will be presented a “Clemmy,” honoring late NASCAR official Clem Droste, who passed away last winter.

“That‘s what this whole race is about, memorizing and dedicating it to Clem Droste,” Milburn said. “We have a bobblehead, trophy and plaque for the winner of that race. It‘ll hopefully be a little fun event and I hope there‘ll be a bunch of fans out there to see the drivers not in their full on racing element, more of a relaxed element. A light mood for everybody before we get to the race Saturday evening.”

The track itself isn’t fully finished due to Milburn and Kart Idaho Racing’s responsibilities running their race team in the K&N Pro Series.

“When everyone shows up, it‘s not going to be done yet because we‘re doing a lot of it ourselves,” he said. “And with us being full-time on the West coast, traveling East for some races and running a K&N program at the same time, it‘s hard to get everything done with the go-kart facility. The track itself is done. We got all the rental karts, and most of those are all ready to go.”

Milburn and company believe the track will be amongst the best on the West coast, modeling themselves after the popular GoPro Motorplex in Mooresville, North Carolina, where events in the NASCAR world are regularly held.

“We‘ve had some IKF (International Karting Federation) champions come out and test on the track, and they said compared to other tracks it‘s actually really technical and fun,” he said. “We‘re not going to be at GoPro level and we don‘t need to with the demographics and people we have in the area, but it‘ll definitely give them something that‘s nicer than most go kart facilities you come up to. When everyone comes and checks is out, they‘ll see the whole base of it and what it‘ll become down the road.”

The NAPA Auto Parts Idaho 208 is scheduled to go green on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. PDT on September 28.