MADERA, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Start your engines because NASCAR is racing back to the Central Valley for the first time in more than a decade.

With Saturday night’s ARCA Menards 51-Fifty Junior Homecoming Race at the Madera Speedway.

With each rev of an engine is a simultaneous roar of the crowd at the Madera Speedway.

“It’s the smells of the tires and the smells of the oils the smell of the gas and the rev of the engine and the noise it’s all of it,” said racing fan Sharron Thomas.

22 drivers entered Saturday’s Arca Menards 51-Fifty Junior Homecoming Race chasing the checkered flag 

This marks the first time NASCAR has been under the light in Madera since 2009.

The cars practically turn into rockets reaching speeds of over a hundred miles an hour, on just a third of a mile of track for 150 laps.

“It’s kind of a chess match You’re going to see 22 cars eleven rows deep and just an inch away from each other,” said Kenny Shepherd, President of Madera Shepherd.

Shepherd spent the last three years trying to get the race back in the valley.

“The six months leading into this Zoom calls every week and as we got closer and closer over the last thirty days there has been an incredible amount of preparation,” said Shepherd.

With so much to be done in such little time some parts of the paint are still drying. And with the success of the race, Shepherd is trying to get more races like this in Madera 

“We’re already talking with NASCAR about what would it take to get these races to start with but can we do another two years from now even next year were asking about,” Shepherd continued.