Deputies Take Over Race Track For Training Day

SPOKANE — Just days after Spokane County Motor Sports Park held its first race of the season, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office had its deputies pushing their patrol cars to the limits out on the track.

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich has talked about using the race track for driver’s training and wasted no time as his deputies, driving retired patrol cars, took to the track Wednesday. They were joined by law enforcement officers from the Spokane Valley, Cheney and Eastern Washington University Police Departments.

The training held Wednesday included downed officer rescues and high and low speed driving courses. Officers also conducted training on the pit maneuver, where deputies use their patrol cars to knock the rear quarter panel of a car they are pursuing in an attempt to turn the car sideways and force the car’s driver to lose control and stop.

All 265 deputies in the sherrif’s office has to train annually on performing the pit maneuver.

In the past the sheriff’s office had to send their deputies north to an abandoned airstrip near Deer Park but now that the county owns the race track in Airway Heights they can schedule training time on that course whenever they need to conduct in-service driver’s training.