Let the dirt fly: The 39th season of fast-paced action at Delta Speedway is off and running, featuring a new racing class and surprises aplenty on the track.
A crowd of about 500 people filled the stands for Saturday night’s opener at the 1/7-mile dirt oval at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds, many of them gathered to cheer on family and friends while chowing hot dogs and sandwiches served by Royce Farms BBQ.
Among the returning drivers in 2025 is Stockton’s Nikko Panella, who has been racing since before he was even 5 years old. It started with go-karting and grew into a passion that keeps him coming back to the decades-old dirt track in Stockton.
His style is to employ caution while racing with “finesse,” he told Stocktonia.
“A lot of drivers just go out there, just balls to the wall … I just try to put together the best 30 laps that you can without making mistakes,” Panella said. “That might mean I’m a little conservative, doing certain things, but at least that saves me from being at-risk of making too many mistakes and drivers behind me capitalizing on it.”
That doesn’t mean Panella has avoided crashes. He’s had his fair share, he said, but none of them major enough to dim his enthusiasm. He cited one specific incident from last year.
“It was Lap 29 and just one last-ditch effort on the last lap to try to get to second … got my left side up and put it on two wheels, and then I couldn’t save it. It just started flipping,” he recalled.
Last year, Panella won first place out of 23 drivers in the non-wing class in Stockton. Without balancing wings, the cars are more difficult to control.
To open this season, Panella took third place in both the non-wing division and Super 600s.
At 20 years old now, he has high hopes for the 2025 campaign.
“So far we’ve started off this year pretty good. A lot better down south than we expected, so I’m kind of excited to just keep racing and stay fresh,” said Panella, who had already competed in events at Lemoore Raceway and Plaza Park Raceway, both south of Fresno.
The Saturday night slate at Delta Speedway, meanwhile, also included the introduction of the A-class division.
“It lets the budget racers that don’t have a billion dollars to come in here and race every weekend and actually have a stepping stone,” said Norm Fenn of Fenn Racing, standing beside his wife, Frances and two Junior Sprint drivers.
“It’s good for the younger kids who don’t want to jump straight in with the big shots that have been doing it forever,” Panella said. “It’s impressive that all these frickin’ 12- and 13-year-olds are doing what they’re doing.”
Many cautions were signaled throughout the night, meaning racers stopped while track officials helped a car that had flipped or got stuck. Promoter Tiffanie Panella called it unusual.
“It was a little nuts,” she said. “I think just the first race back, ‘cause we raced down south two weeks ago and it was the same thing, just nonstop.”
Her son explained there is an assumed risk, but it’s common courtesy not to intentionally crash-out other racers.
“You figure out pretty quick who isn’t worried about crashing into you and who is, who wants to drive clean and who doesn’t,” Nikko Panella said. “I try not to, the best I can anyways to try to not touch anyone, or if I do, it’s in a racing manner and not ‘I’m-gonna-try-to-crash-you’ manner.”
The full season schedule is online at the Delta Speedway website. The second race is slated for Saturday, April 19.