Little Gator Motorsports Winter Nationals Kicks Off Monday at Auburndale

Practice days see near record car count at Auburndale return

The 2021 INEX season officially kicks into high gear on Monday afternoon, February 8th, in Winter Haven, Florida with the start of the 24th Annual Winter Nationals presented by Little Gator Motorsports. The event, which sees all INEX divisions of Bandolero and WIX Filters Legend cars compete in five races over the week, returns to Auburndale Speedway for the first time since 2014. Racing is scheduled to begin on Monday and run through Friday with a floating off-day of Wednesday if the schedule shifts due to weather.

LegendsNation is on site at Auburndale Speedway delivering comprehensive coverage from the annual event. LegendsNation.tv (LNTV) will have coverage of every competitive lap of racing beginning with B Mains, if necessary, at around 12pm each day that there is on track action. LNTV is available to be watched on PC, tablet, smartphone and even via the Roku and Amazon Fire TV app and available worldwide. Fans can access the live flag-to-flag coverage with their monthly subscription to LNTV. The LegendsNation social media platforms will have updates, clips and recaps throughout the week. You can find LegendsNation on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @LegendsNation.

A handful of drivers head to Auburndale Speedway looking to start the 2021 season where they finished 2020 – on top. Caleb Heady (Pro), Jaiden Reyna (Young Lions), Tim Brockhouse (Masters), Alex Hartwig (Outlaw) and Tristan McKee (Bandit) all captured INEX Point Championships in their respective divisions in 2020 and are in Winter Haven, Florida for the season kick off. Reyna, who was also the 2020 Little Gator Motorsports Winter Nationals Young Lion Champion, will compete for the Pro Championship in 2021. Hartwig will attempt double duty in both the Young Lion and Outlaw divisions.

In addition to Reyna, Brockhouse also started his 2020 championship point run with a Little Gator Motorsports Winter Nationals Championship. Brockhouse returns in search of another trophy from Florida in February as does Olivia Murray, who won the Beginner Bandolero event title in 2020. Murray is set to compete in the Bandolero Outlaw championship this week.

The event will see the addition of the Charger Legend division for the first time in several years. Geared towards new Legend drivers, the addition of the class brings the field to eight divisions that will compete throughout the week at Auburndale Speedway.

Early indications have the 24th edition of Winter Nationals breaking the event car count set back in 2018 at Citrus County Speedway. A total of 168 cars across all divisions were registered and on site at Auburndale Speedway during Sunday’s practice day, one shy of the record of 169. With more cars expected to check in throughout the week, it is expected that a new benchmark will be set by the time the checkered flag falls on Friday.

This anticipated record breaking season is without the Canadian contingent of teams who have made the Little Gator Motorsports Winter Nationals a destination each year. Due to border and travel restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, no entries from north of the border are in the field heading into Monday’s opening day of competition.

With the field pushing towards 170 entries, storylines are aplenty during the 24th Annual Little Gator Motorsports Winter Nationals.

Monday, February 8th Schedule :