UPDATE 05/03/2024: Due to rain and hail that hit the racetrack last night, the Estevan Motor Speedway and its board of directors decided to cancel the opening night that was slated for tomorrow. 

In a social media post, the team mentioned that the fundraiser for the Mann family will be moved to the next race. The tickets purchased for the opener will be valid for the next race on May 18th. 

Original story below:

The Estevan Motor Speedway will be opening up their season this weekend with races set for Saturday.

Unlike other race weekends, this one will take place at 5 p.m. since temperatures are set to drop later in the evening.

Speedway President Brad Pierson says that they're excited to start off the racing season strong by helping out a local family.

"It's an early show for us, but we've pulled it off the last few years and it's our full program, and then what the most exciting thing is is that we're dedicating a lot of our profits towards a great family who still has three generations at the Speedway. They're in a bit of medical duress right now, so a lot of our profits are going to go to them this weekend and it's just caused a great positive stir."

That'll include a 50/50 which now has a guaranteed minimum of $7,000, provided by the Biggs family.

Pierson says the night will see only a few new changes as they look to make sure everything goes off without a hitch.

"Not really anything new the first weekend, we just try to pull off a clean show and not do anything too crazy. People will see some improvements out there. We did a grandstand improvement late last year and the second phase will be done next weekend, so people that stand up on the top tier will notice they have much safer footing underneath them. Few other things coming down the pipe, but we're just pumped more for this weekend to get it kicked off well."

 The excitement is shared by the racers who are getting ready to tear up the Estevan track.

"Racers are a bit of procrastinators, getting their cars ready," said Pierson, "But it sounds like everyone's ready to go, and they're excited to get out there and have a really strong year." 

Some rain is expected during the week with Pierson hoping for some soft rains that won't affect the track too much.

"I haven't looked much at the forecast moving forward from these couple of days, but we should be all right as long as we don't get a whole bunch more moving into Thursday or Friday."

Pierson says he's feeling good about the weekend, with another announcement on a returning type of show coming later this summer.

"One thing that we haven't announced yet is we will have a monster truck show in mid-August. We had the last one of those two years ago and it's a big weekend for the Motor Speedway and a big weekend for restaurants and surrounding communities. Five really powerful, good-looking, well-known trucks coming in for that one, and that'll be a big deal.