Balentine Retires As Announcer at Michael’s Mercer Raceway Park

In a shocking post this evening, Michael’s Mercer Raceway Park Announcer Jim Balentine has announced his retirement following the 2026 season.

The statement read:

After 10 years I have made the decision to retire as announcer and PR from Mercer for 2027. I started announcing at the end of the 2016 season after the great Mike Dutko retired after Frank and Marilyn asked me and announced every show up to the last one when I helped out at a concert.

So many memories and first time winners in those 10 years I had the pleasure of interviewing and seeing the reaction of winning at Mercer was priceless. I’ve seen many grow up from kids in the stands into great racers and have seen many retire from my era growing up .

I have nothing but great things to say about Mike Mathieson who took on this crazy promoter job and has done very well at it, and Earl and Michelle Michaels who took it upon themselves to add Mercer to their list of successful businesses and in just a short time have made Mercer great again. The rain outs didn’t help any but it helped make the other shows special. The whole crew there was great to work with and some of us go way back to when I was track photographer from 07-2001.

I will still be there photographing events and maybe even return to the booth if needed but at 55 years old and having weekends off.. there are things that I have done this year and things I want to do next year which I haven’t done in a long time or never done and enjoyed it.

I’ll still keep my stats updated and keep the history of Mercer alive but the time has to come to pass the mic to the next one. I hope I entertained, educated, and explained things as I heard them growing up in the stands learning this special job from the best and spewing out all my “useless knowledge” as they say.

Thank you drivers, crews, families,and fans for the ride of a lifetime for all those years… I hail all of you!

See all of you next year!

Jim Balentine

Balentine does expect to be at several tracks in 2027 behind the lens of a camera, but he stated to our team that he was looking to enjoy a few off weekends in the new year.

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