Todd Rose | Daily Press Escanaba’s Nick Leisner slides his street stock into turn three at the Upper Peninsula Interntaional Raceway Saturday during practice.

ESCANABA — The Upper Peninsula International Raceway held its practice day for the 2021 racing season Saturday in Escanaba.

The several-hours-long practice session gave drivers from the track’s seven divisions — youth, sportsman and 600 micro sprints, street stocks, vintage and sport modifieds and four cylinders — the chance to shakedown their cars.

Two drivers of the sport modified division that are no strangers to UPIR — or its victory lane — but still took the chance to hit the track were Escanaba’s Jamie Iverson and Menominee’s Matt Valiquette.

While both have raced at other tracks already this year — Iverson at 141 Speedway in Manitowoc and Valiquette in his vintage modified at Gravity Park in Chilton — it was their first time on the UPIR dirt track this year.

“We’ve got a new car and just want to make sure everything is running the way it’s supposed to,” said Iverson. “We had some issues the first time out (at 141)… so we’ve come here to make it better and not have issues when (later on).”

Iverson is hopeful that he will be able to make most of the shows on the 2021 schedule.

“It’s kind of up in the air,” he said. “We’ll try to make as many shows as we can, but some of the Sunday and Friday shows we might not be able to make. We might not be able to make all of them, but we’ll try to make as many as we can.”

Last year, Iverson finished third in the sport modified division championship standings. Ahead of him were Matt Valiquette in second and champion Lonnie Dalgord.

For Valiquette — who will be pulling double-duty every week in the modifieds and vintage modifieds — any chance to get in the car is beneficial.

“Any time you have an opportunity to be in the seat turning laps — whether it’s at a practice, a track out of town or a regular race night — you’re learning,” said Valiquette. “You’re going to get better, you’re going to get faster, you’ll be more competitive and you’ll be more comfortable in the car.

“In the first part of the year, getting that comfort back from last fall is critical, so it’s all about laps. It’s all about seat time.”

On Friday, Valiquette swept the heat and the feature at Gravity Park in Chilton.

“I was just thrilled with the track and great crowd of people,” he said. “People are ready to come out and have some fun, and what better way to do that than come out to your Friday, Saturday or Sunday racetrack.”

Joining Valiquette in the vintage division are veterans like his father Jake Valiquette, Herb Iverson, Jerry Olsen, Don Benoit, Allan Yelle and Dave Broeders among others.

“We’ve got a stacked deck of seasoned veterans. So, it’s going to be a lot of fun racing them guys,” said Valiquette.

Twelve weekends of racing action at UPIR gets underway Sunday, June 6.