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The Editor's Viewpoint

It's May 1st as I write this, and I am a little upset at the moment. True, I feel like I'm on my way out of being actively involved in motorsports media and promotions, but the plan was to enjoy this season regardless of what I do next year. As I sit here, Douglas County Speedway made the announcement that they will not be racing this month at all. This is a step beyond the announcement that we just made at Southern Oregon Speedway that Madras Speedway pretty much echoed. Promoter Mike McCann has announced that Southern Oregon Speedway won't open until we can do so without restrictions.

Just in the last few days, Cottage Grove Speedway announced that they wouldn't be opening without fans either and thought this might not happen until sometime in the summer. I think the optimism is July for some, but that's not based on anything. Heather Boyce is in a difficult position as she is purchasing that track for a substantial sum from Jerry Schram. The loss of the races she's endured so far has not helped, and knowing that she's dealing with a viper cannot have her feeling all that comfortable.

Speaking of that viper, Schram has a General Manager in place at Willamette Speedway named Loren Kresci. Loren made the announcement on that same newscast that the track hopes to be ready for the World of Outlaws race, which is scheduled to take place in September. I actually think this plays in perfectly with what Schram is dealing with. The county has been making demands on certain repairs at the facility due to code violations, and there has been some debate about whether the season would even happen there. Now, they don't have to worry about it.

Jerry Schram isn't the luckiest guy on the West Coast. I still say that man is John Soares. John was perfectly willing to come back and promote another season at Antioch Speedway if he had to. Those gates were not going to close on his watch. Even when Chad Chadwick missed the day of the deadline to purchase the speedway last October, John didn't shut down the negotiations as he had threatened to do. This is because if Chad was really interested, he had no reason not to give him more time. From John's perspective, he had nothing to lose. In the end, he got his money, and Chadwick is the on the hook at Antioch Speedway. He's now lost six races. That's painful for a guy trying to begin to recoup some investment.

I want to go back to what McCann said about not opening until full restrictions are lifted. This is so important, because for a promoter this is a business. You can care about the racers and giving them the best experience possible on any given race night, but money is what keeps it going. If they are telling you that when you open you can't have as many fans as you can possibly sell tickets to, what are you doing this for? Unless somebody is going to hand you a check for a few thousand dollars, you're losing money. You can't do that repeatedly and expect to make it.

I'm plenty pissed about the current virus situation, because in my opinion it's overblown. I'll piss certain people off by going deeper into the subject, so I really don't want to do that. People are certainly dying. I understand that. However, we could easily die in our own homes if the threat is that serious. Our government cannot keep us safe, but they certainly can use a crisis such as this to begin to infringe upon our God-given liberties. That's just the way I see it. I feel like we've lost so much already that we didn't have to lose, and the fear machine constantly promotes that narrative on TV every day. It's echoed by people on social media. Do you want to curl up in a fetal position and hide away or live your life? As the saying goes, "Live free or die."

Our little play time fun on the weekends is only a drop in the bucket. I'm looking at people who have spent their lives building their businesses. As they are not able to open their doors, they lose money. People are close to running out of money to pay for their homes. If they are unable to get back to doing what it is they do, they could lose everything. I fully understand the pain of losing a home you've lived in for many years. I don't want people to lose everything because of something that's not as bad as we are being told. Racing and other sporting events don't matter when compared to that, but they are a way in which we deal with the stresses of everyday life. 

The World of Outlaws, a respected lawyer and an insurance salesman drafted some guidelines recently for reopening race tracks across the country, and it highlights some of the BS tracks could be forced to deal with. They're talking about little things like hand sanitizing stations at entry points, handing out free hand sanitizer to fans, limited fan access, no concession sales, hiring a special cleanup unit to disinfect the facilities and bringing medical people for the entry points to check people's temperatures. Is this what it's going to come to? They are also talking about the possibility of going cashless at the speedway, and I won't get into the issues I have with that idea. I will tell you I would think long and hard about whether I wanted to be a promoter if it came down to this.

On the other hand, we're a litigious society. You can have the most die-hard racing fan show up at your facility and end up getting sick in the next day or two. Suddenly, they are on their deathbed and a family member sues over the fact that the fan died from an illness that they contacted at your race track. Or, that person recovers and still wants to sue you for not properly providing a sanitized place. How do you combat that? Are fans going to have to sign waivers to come spectate? How many hoops will we have to go through to get back to some semblance of normalcy? 

I'm suspicious of the people talking about this virus who are offering the solutions. I'm suspicious of their motivations when it comes to global population. I'm suspicious of the idea that people might be forced to take vaccinations in order to have a normal life and this idea that vaccinations could become annual or semi-annual events as new strains of the virus emerge. I'm suspicious of the idea that we could have an implanted chip of some kind, sold to us as a way to make sure we are vaccinated properly at first. However, it could go deeper than that. Then again, I'm a suspicious person. Some of you will understand where I'm coming from, and others will probably recommended places for me to go get a tinfoil hat. Time will tell.

What does that have to do with racing? The first reality is that there will be a possibility of opening a dirt track before you can have anybody in the grandstands. Or, it will only be limited grandstands. The state runs the fairgrounds, and if you happen to be unlucky enough to be in California, what do you think the odds are of the governor loosening the restraints and letting the tracks do real business? I'm thinking that will be an uphill battle. Tracks are going to fight for anything they can get. I understand that.

I think the leader in the fairgrounds race track movement in California is Kenny Shepherd. A couple of weeks ago, he announced that he had outlined a five stage plan to get Madera Speedway back to full racing again. It would start with whatever kind of practicing they could get. If it's one car at a time, or so be it. Then, he wants to get racing happening, even if they can't have a crowd. Kenny has even mentioned allowing the fans to watch the races for free on Facebook, which is certainly very cool if he can afford to do that. Ultimately, he's also concerned with creating content for MavTV, which airs several of his Late Model races every year. Late Models and Junior Late Models will certainly take priority. During the weekend, he announced that the county gave him approval to begin staging limited practices, and I applied Kenny for at least putting that plan together.

Otherwise, it's the non fairgrounds tracks that seem to be doing more. Marysville Raceway has had very restricted practices. I understand this has involved one driver and crew member per car and five cars, parked in the infield. Two practice sessions a day when they do it. Not sure how many practices Dennis Gage has had, but I have my eye on Marysville. I won't be surprised if they're the first non fairgrounds track to attempt to run a race in front of an empty grandstand. On the Outlaw Kart level, Cycleland has outlined a plan that had them starting with practice this past weekend. They hope to race by Memorial Day Weekend.

Hills Ferry Raceway had a an ill-conceived plan that was going to have them racing this past weekend. There was an AMA Flat Track bike race that would happen on Saturday with an Outlaw Kart event happening on Sunday. Sadly, I don't think the management had put everything in order before making the announcement. They hoped that everything would fall into place, but they got word early Thursday morning that there was no way for it to happen. I get it. Everybody wants to get back to doing what we love to do. 

A track in South Dakota caught a bunch of attention when they opened up for a race two weeks ago. A neighboring track ran the next night. The Saturday race was going to allow 700 fans in the stands, but management backed off of that idea after receiving outside pressure. SpeedshiftTV came in to do the broadcast. It was bumpy and people were having difficulty connecting. I don't believe the nation's premier internet racing pay-per-view broadcaster was prepared for just how many people would be watching, but they eventually overcame the bumps. I'm told they had somewhere over a quarter of a million viewers. Not bad at all. People want their racing.

What we are witnessing right now is that states that are run by Republican governors are more open to bringing back some sort of normalcy. These are the states that are beginning to experiment with opening race tracks. Some are looking to do it with empty grandstands, and others with partially full stands that are employing social distancing techniques. The blue states sit in frustration as race after race gets canceled. I really hate to talk about this as something that's being politicized. I don't consider myself a fan of either party, but I'm not dumb. Politics are very much at the heart of what is happening here, and it's not purely about public health. This is a presidential election year.

So what do you do? Promoters are sitting right now in frustration. It's not easy for somebody to say they can't open until restrictions are lifted or they're not opening for the entire month of May, which was also announced for Skagit. Some tracks are making announcements one week at a time while they sit and wait in hopes of racing. I'm hearing rumblings of one Bay Area track getting closer to calling for a practice that might happen in the next couple of weeks. Given that this is a fairgrounds location, I'm skeptical of them having a full practice. Limited practice for a track rental fee? Perhaps. Then again, who knows? This is a fluid situation.

How much can a promoter give away? Can a promoter risk opening up a track without a grandstand and not worry about compensation of some sort? How much give and take are racers willing to deal with in a situation like that? Increased entry fee? Decreased purses? What would be acceptable before racers said no versus what is acceptable loss before be a promoter says they just can't open yet? How much of a limited grandstand is too limited for promoters to take the risk? Or, if it's a limited grandstand, how much is too expensive a ticket for the fans to pay? These are all legitimate questions, let alone the costs to cover any health and safety adjustments that are demanded by the fairgrounds to meet specific guidelines. What if the state demands you must have hot running water in the bathroom and you don't currently have that? What if the state declares that you can't open your concession stands?

Therefore, when a promoter is looking at ways in which they can open up the race track, there's a lot to consider. I look at Heather Boyce as a barometer for all of this in Oregon. She is known as somewhat of a racer's promoter, and she flat out said that she couldn't afford to open in front of a closed grandstand. Most promoters will be in the same boat. The other intangible in this deal is the idea that this could be the first of many viruses, and our way of life may be altered as a result. That's the worst case scenario, but being the person that I am, it's at least a thought in the back of my mind. 

The other worry that I have with this virus is that I don't think there's as big a risk of people getting sick as we get into these summer months. The heat and warm weather tends to deal with things like this. The antidote, in part at least, is getting out in the sun and not hiding. We're also going to have to deal with being in lockdown in 100 degree weather. Some houses won't have air conditioning and others will have it running nonstop. Not only will those people have to worry about higher electricity bills, there will be a strain on the power grid and potential power outages as a result of people being locked down as the weather gets hotter. I don't believe we should be in lockdown at this point. 

Again, the conspiratorial side of me wonders what if they loosen things up at the end of summer. Fine, tracks open up to have a few races in front of however many fans they can get. Then, fall sets in. Tracks want to stay open a little bit longer to recover financially at least a little bit. As it gets colder, suddenly people start getting sick and we're back into that cycle again. There's certain powers-that-be that seem to want to ratchet up the fear at that point, and that has me concerned. But enough of that line of thinking. A lot of this is worst case scenario anyway.

I look at the idea that we've already seen the cancellation of the Antioch Fair, Glenn County Fair, Merced County Fair and the big State Fair in Sacramento. That last Fair stretches into early August. In other words, it doesn't seem like the State Fairgrounds expect that they can have mass gatherings through the end of July. If they thought differently, some of the fairs could have been held. What does that do for fairgrounds race tracks? Are we looking at late July or early August as the earliest time in which we can get back to having fans at the track? When is the earliest that we can run in front of an empty grandstand, and how many people would be allowed in the pits?

I stand firmly behind Mike McCann when he says that we can't open until we can do so without restrictions. To run the business model that we have put in place at Southern Oregon Speedway, it requires us to be able to do everything at our fullest potential. We've struggled over the last four years to build this program into something that's gathering momentum and looking much better than it was when we got here. We've put several big marquee events on the schedule, and things really get going in August. Several big purse events. August into early September. Therefore, losing the momentum building dates in May definitely hurt us. June has also proven to be a good month, and while May looks doubtful, June also looks iffy at best. June doesn't appear to be a month in which we can open with no restrictions, if at all. That leads us to July and a bigger question.

If we get to July having not opened the gates, would July be a month with only limited crowds allowed? Again, the track won't open unless it can be done without restrictions. If it gets to August, the chances of a race happening at Southern Oregon Speedway are very doubtful in my opinion. I'm not speaking officially for the race track when I say that, just as an observer. It doesn't make very much business sense at that point. 

This is another reason I am very pissed off right now. This thing that we're going through that has been used in a political way has wiped out so much of what we've worked hard to build up at that track. I was looking forward to enjoying the season a little bit more and taking some of the pressure off of myself. Now I wonder, will I witness another race at this track again?

This would be the part of the column where I engage in a little bit of speculation, but as I said, this is a fluid situation. I'm adding this part right now (May 4th) after news from Placerville. Last week, we got news of several California counties ready to loosen their restrictions. This included Butte, Yuba, Glenn, Tehama and El Dorado. This news came at the same time as several Bay Area counties announced that they were going to keep restrictions in place for another month, which included Contra Costa County among others. That would make things challenging for Antioch Speedway during the month of May, but we'll see. Late last week, Marysville Raceway management put out an incomplete announcement that they were going to do something this weekend, but I'm not sure if they were talking race or practice at this point. As I write this, I have a hunch the clarification will be coming soon, and they will likely be doing something.

Placerville Speedway management just made the first announcement we've seen from them since this all broke out that a full practice will be happening. They are still trying to adhere to some guidelines, mostly associated with social distancing and sanitization. However, they are planning to practice on Saturday night. They won't be having an open grandstands, but it's been general policy for most fairgrounds race tracks that they don't allow fans at practice anyway. This is an insurance situation. Obviously, the situation we're in right now would have made an open grandstands at a practice a challenge anyway. 

So as I write this, the first full practice session at a big track in California since all of this happened will take place at Placerville Speedway this weekend. This is a different business model. Promoters are only opening the gates for a practice, so that means they aren't racing and worried about paying purses. One of the reasons tracks hold practices before the season starts is for the promoters to collect a few bucks before the season starts. It's not like they're making money as that money will go back into various costs as the season goes on. It's still useful for promoters. Theoretically, a promoter could run a month of practices under these conditions if that's all they can get. The bigger question is are the racers so desperate to get track time that they'll run a month of practices? 

Placerville Speedway Promoter Scott Russell hadn't been giving any indication on social media that he was considering anything, so this was a bit of a surprise, albeit a welcome one. I'm not sure what follows this practice and when he might attempt to run a show, even if it's under rules that limit how many fans can come spectate. Then again, one of the advantages that Russell has is that he definitely has some good sponsors behind him. As I said, this is a fluid situation, so any progress made along the lines of what Placerville Speedway is doing this weekend is certainly a good sign. It is advisable to keep checking your track's Facebook page and website daily for updates.

I do play devil's advocate. I've just got one of those analytical minds. Always have, so I've been going over ideas for a track to run races without fans. They are kind of radical. I mean, if they tell you you can only have 100 people gathering, can you do anything? Let's say Antioch Speedway was planning on having four divisions race that night and they got the go-ahead for 100 people. Or, let's give them 150 people. You're going to have a four division show, but there's a good bet that there's going to be more than 150 people total in the pits. Let's say you had IMCA Modifieds, IMCA Sport Modifieds, Hobby Stocks and Dwarf Cars on the card.

If you can only have 150 people in the pits, there's no way this works. However, let's say you open the pits early. You open the pits at 10. First race will fire off at noon. You pick two divisions. Let's say the IMCA Modifieds and Dwarf Cars get the first program. You'll probably be able to get 150 people in the pits there. Of course, if this is the only Modified and Dwarf Car show happening, you might go over that number as well. This is the problem. Are you going to have somebody counting the numbers at the gate to make sure you stay under the limit? Even if not, you have to report how many people were there eventually. Somebody could complain that you had more people. More headaches.

For argument's sake, let's say you did have 150 people in the pits for the early show. It wraps up and people are out of the pits by  4. Everybody from the Sport Modifieds and Hobby Stocks comes in at 5 and you are racing by 7. You effectively had your four division show in two sessions. You could do it that way by being creative, although your staff will have a much longer day. I don't think most of them would complain as they enjoy doing what they do. I also doubt any track would attempt a solution like this.

The problem with running in front of an empty grandstands is you're still not making money. The rent is still going to be due. Insurance is still going to have to be paid. Your employees who work the show are still going to have to be paid. Purses are still going to have to be paid along with any sanctioning fees and additional costs. I would hope you could still at least open up your pit concessions to get money there, because you've lost the grandstands and grandstands concessions. That's not insignificant. Grandstands money alone is huge. Even if you average 600 fans a night and between adult and kids tickets are averaging around $12 a ticket, you're talking $7,200 from the grandstands. This is a rough estimate and that's not counting concessions money.

The answer I hear is internet streaming. Bring in Speedshift or one of the other companies. The problem is that under normal circumstances this doesn't amount to very much money after the professional broadcasting company takes their cut. You're talking hundreds of dollars, which doesn't compare to the thousands you normally get. True, we're in a time right now where a lot of tracks can't open. Therefore, it stands to reason that the internet streams will have more viewers. If you can hit the motherload like South Dakota recently did, it could be even more profitable than it would be under normal circumstances. Then again, you can't assume that this is the norm.

I can say this about Antioch Speedway, but it really applies to any track. We're in a new age when it comes to the sport. We really haven't completely caught up with the technology and all that it can do for the sport. Granted, a lot of people get on the internet and assume that if it's on the internet it should be free. You're always going to encounter a contingent of people who won't pay for anything. However, you've already got people used to getting on the internet and watching a race at any track on social media for free. Fans can't help but stick their camera phones in the air to film whatever race they happen to be watching. Even if the quality isn't good, you still get a good enough taste of the show to see what's going on.

Antioch Speedway is a unique enough track in that Brett Phillips proved what could be done last year with his drone footage. Brett actually had the capability of broadcasting every race live. Really, this overhead perspective alone was good enough and certainly worthy of money. You get a good view of the cars, and he flew the drone pretty well. You were able to see every pass for the lead from a unique perspective, and I'm told that he had the capability of piping that footage in with the PA system to give you an announcer. I don't know how much Brett had invested in his equipment, but as it is, he would be capable of going live from the track. He also did some filming from the grandstands as well, so he could do that too. 

What you're dealing with at that point is battery power for your drone so that it's always able to stay on and bandwidth to make sure that you can give the viewer good enough quality. The track can create its own infrastructure where you view from the track's server behind a pay window, but you don't have to do it that way. YouTube and other streaming sites have the capability of hiding everything behind a pay window as well. Therefore, if you want to watch the race, you have to pay a fee. If it's $10, $12 or whatever, you don't see it until you pay. If the quality of the stream is good enough and you can hear the announcer, people will pay for it. 

Now, Brett was also doing something pretty cool. He would go live before the races with his pit walk. If this is done and put out there to the public, it serves a couple of functions. The first is to let everybody know who is there and that the stream will be live on pay-per-view. The second is to let the people who are within track distance know that they need to get their butts to the track and come see it in person. The infrastructure is already built, and you can do other things to build up the support for this pay service. It's a great marketing tool for any race track.

Obviously, you want people to pay to watch the races. You don't want to give away the show for free. However, you can also have a site set up where people might see a few tidbits. Maybe a brief highlight, driver interviews or internet show highlighting the track. Some stuff can be free, other stuff can be behind a pay window. It's a marketing tool for the speedway and also a tool to generate revenue. As the fairgrounds doesn't really know about all of this stuff and how it works just yet, the promoters would probably be able to generate all of that revenue for themselves initially, minus the fee for the drone operator. Your cost is basically related to people operating cameras and bandwidth. The track already pays the announcer. Therefore, the rest is profit. 

Here's the thing. I'm talking about this as a way to generate revenue in times when we can't get fans in the stands, but we should be looking at this from another perspective as well. We've faced declining numbers. Fans have left that aren't coming back. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get them back, but we should also recognize that there are fans that we can't reach by getting them to come to our track. These are the fans that we might reach by giving them a quality broadcast at a reasonable price. These are fans who once lived in Antioch and now have moved out of state. They wouldn't mind watching the show from their old home track if it was an option. These are fans that have never been to Antioch, but they'll watch the stream every week if it's good enough. Give them good footage and decent enough announcing, and you'll get them. Give them those little shows during the week that hype things up and make them want to come back next week. It's a whole new way to market the show.

I'm not going to tell you that you can put this on the internet immediately and generate big revenue. It's not as easy as that. It could be that some of your biggest supporters will be people paying for the replay who competed that night. Gradually, those numbers go up. If you're getting 600 or 700 fans in the stands, but now you also get 200 people online, that's more money. If you charge them $12 or $15 a ticket, how much more money did you make than you would have had the online stream not been an option?

What you're basically doing is selling the notion of Antioch Speedway as a professional sporting event like anything else. You can even open up merchandising online. Want that Antioch Speedway hat, shirt, bumper sticker, coffee mug? You can order it online and have it sent to your home. Want an official souvenir program or other books specifically geared towards the history of the track? Order it online. Become a fan of Antioch Speedway all the way in Tallahassee, Florida. Berlin, Germany. Who knows? I mention Antioch, but every track should be considering this.

There's potential for that to grow. It could become 500 fans watching every week online. You don't know until you try. If you can put something together at a reasonable cost, it doesn't hurt to try, but I can already hear the traditional, old-school promoters speaking against this idea. They make a good point when they say that an internet fan doesn't buy their hamburger or soda from the concession stands. That's absolutely true. However, I think most of the fans who can get to your track will be there. They want to be there for the sights, sounds, smells and all the excitement. But, we have a TV viewing public that is more comfortable sitting in their homes watching than going to the track. It's just the way it is now. If it hadn't changed this much, race tracks everywhere would still be getting 2,000 fans or more every week, but that's not the time we live in. This isn't the 1960s or 1970s.

The internet has so many different tools that you can use at your disposal, and it is kind of remarkable to realize that tracks aren't looking into that as much as they could. YouTube is a viable option, and like I said, there are others. Just because you put it up on YouTube doesn't mean you have to put it up for free. You can put it behind a pay window. Obviously, YouTube will want their cut. Therefore, you might look at other streaming sites and what kind of bandwidth they have versus how much they want out of your profit. But, if they have the site to host it, you don't have to worry about setting up that part of the infrastructure on your own site to get it up and running. All you need to worry about is having the proper equipment to conduct a broadcast that's appealing enough to get people to want to pay.

This is something people are looking at given the fact that we have the restrictions in place now, but I think it's something that needs to be looked at in a whole new way going forward. People can now hookup their internet to their TV set. Therefore, you can watch a local race track on the big screen while enjoying your beverage of choice. As racing faces so many challenges that we know of and ones we don't see coming, we're going to need to look at more options such as this in the future.

Again, I don't know what the answer is going to be for this virus situation. I consider it a fluid situation where the people themselves could affect what happens. The more people speak up and make their displeasure public, the more that can change what we're dealing with. Things can open up quicker, or they can drag out longer. It does seem to be dragging out along party lines, and the red states are the ones that may open sooner. Unfortunately, all of us on the West Coast are living in blue states with governors who know how important their economy is to the country. Given that this is an election cycle, that might not bode well for this racing season, especially at fairgrounds tracks.

I do know that the promoters are looking at this situation closely and trying to come up with a workaround. It may be that all we're going to be doing for a while is practicing, but I have a feeling that racers are ready to do that, even if that's all they get. I wish I had better news, but I don't know anything concrete. As I said, the situation in Medford doesn't look so good. We may not be looking at a racing season at all, and I'm not happy to say that. It makes me not want to write much of anything, because I'm not giving people good news. I want to be giving people good news.

Just keep praying for everybody to be safe and sound, because that's what matters more than anything. I want everybody to be alright for when the time comes when we can get back to doing what we love. I don't know what's in store for me in the future, especially if the show doesn't get going in Medford. I'll do what I can from afar, and if I get the right offer, I could become available beyond that. Or, I could slip away quietly once again. We'll see what goes. On that note, all end this column. Until next time...

Looking Back At The California Hardtop Effort 
That Could Have Started In 1995

I happened to be there for the first official race of the Hardtop revival in California. This took place on September 20th back in 2002. My good friend Don O'Keefe got word of a race at the Sacramento Raceway stadium oval that would feature the Hardtops and the Micro Sprints. Two of our friends, Jim Booth and Ken Bonnema, were looking to get into this division. This particular race was promoted by Mike McCann and Chuck Prather was also involved. These were Cascade Hardtop racers who competed at Sunset Speedway, where Mike featured that division. The next night would see them go to Orland. For a bit of trivia, Steve Lemley won both nights, and that car is now owned by Ken Clifford and driven by his son Jason Clifford with the California Hardtop Association. 

I want to go back a little bit further than this, because believe it or not, the Hardtop movement in California could have started seven years earlier. One of the most interesting people that I've been associated with in my time in racing is Mike Johnson. I could tell you a lot of things about Mike, some good and some bad. He would definitely be somebody worthy of writing a book about, just covering some of the things he's done and the racing he's actually been a part of. I'll just say that whatever people think about the man, he has a passion and love for the sport and an appreciation for its history. 

I'm probably rehashing just a little bit of what was covered in my book, but Mike won me over to the NCMA cause back in 1988. I was not supportive of these California Dirt Cars at first, because I was a Dirt Modified fan. I knew John Procopio, the guy who built the first Dirt Modified in the area, and he had a verbal agreement for a dozen dates at Antioch in 1988. This happened before the management change. Johnson saw the opportunity and swooped in to make his big move. The NCMA and the  Spec Sprint revolution that came afterwards had a chance because Johnson landed dates for the California Dirt Cars at Antioch Speedway in 1988.

It seems like such an unlikely move, because Antioch Speedway never had anything quite like these cars. I think it was after the first race when Johnson and I had a conversation and he explained his philosophy. Racing for the budget-minded, bigger car counts and all of that. I bought into the idea, and I've been a fan of the self-starting, 360 cast iron engine Sprint Car ever since. I call it Sprint Car racing for the Stock Car fan. At that point, I began writing publicity for the NCMA and was elected secretary in 1989. I held both posts until the end of the 1993 season.

Anyway, I never really liked the way things ended with Johnson in that club. I felt they kind of screwed him over. That's always been my opinion, and so when Mike and I had a chance to talk in 1993, I was listening. He pointed out how the NCMA had a big opportunity to do the things he was talking about doing, but they managed to run off a bunch of racers. This much was definitely true in my opinion. Mike had nearly a half-dozen cars at his disposal and an idea. I was listening. 

We began forming the plans for the California Modified Association in 1993, and I once again held the post of publicity director. I didn't give myself much credit for the role that I played in this thing. If not for me, the idea wouldn't have gone anywhere. It would have just been Mike and his cars showing up wherever. I believed that we could get other drivers to join the group and build things up, but Mike found himself having to adapt to things on the fly due to the opposition presented by the NCMA. This led to him deciding that we should run wings on the cars and refer to them as classic style Super Modifieds. He wanted to fully embrace the nostalgia element of this thing.

What I had managed to accomplish was getting Johnson back involved in the building of the future of this style of racing. Things that we were pushing for actually ended up being adopted by the NCMA as that group experienced a resurgence in the immediate years that followed. That's something I was happy to see happen. Unfortunately, the idea of bringing all these similar groups together for big blowout races never happened. Nobody really wanted to meet the other entity halfway, so there was no Santa Maria working with Merced and working with the NCMA. One of the things we accomplished with the CMA was going up to Yreka and helping the Sportsman Sprint class branch out from the fully injected 360 Sprints. I thought that was pretty cool.

We had gone through a whole season and it wasn't developing the way I was hoping. Johnson had four cars running in his stable and a fifth car was being built. That car would finally see the track in 1995. I was wondering if this was worth my effort. As had been the case with much of my involvement in racing publicity to that point, I didn't receive a penny for any of the work I did, and oftentimes some of the promotional stuff that I did went beyond sending articles to publications. It came in the form of printing handouts for the fans at my expense. I wanted just one thing to justify my faith in the effort. I wanted to see one person join this group who had a race car not from Mike's garage. Though we came close to that, it never happened.

It was at the end of the year. Mike was the California Modified Series champion and his father Dave was the California Modified Association champion. Basically, they were champions on paper, but the publicity made it real. It always starts with hype to make it happen, but people joining and growing the deal makes it real. We were discussing what we needed to do in 1995, and Johnson had a new idea. He wanted to build Hardtops and put them on the track with the Modifieds. I firmly believed at the time that within a year or two, if he started this, Modifieds would disappear entirely. It would be a Hardtop effort. He had a love for that class and he wanted to distance himself further from the NCMA and the headaches they were causing him

I had two concerns with this idea. First of all, we hadn't managed to get anybody to join this group. I knew Mike had two cars to build and would build them if that's what he wanted to do. It was a few years later when he built one of those cars and displayed it at the Vallejo Speedway reunion. Yes, he was serious about this. Aside from my concern that I didn't know if we could attract any new drivers as it was before adding Hardtops, Mike was telling me he knew somebody who had a pair of cars that could be built as Hardtops. That man was Steve Woodburn.

There were a couple of problems I had with Steve. Originally, he was supposed to field a Modified to support our effort, but it never happened. Now, I'm not privy to all the dealings that went on between he and Mike, but I didn't see him around Mike's garage all that much. I don't think Steve was very happy with him at that point. Secondly, he was making noise about the car that Dave Johnson was running belonging to him and wanting it back. That was something Mike was never going to let happen. Furthermore, Steve had purchased the car that Ray Aydelot had been driving with the NCMA. It was race ready and could have supported an event by the end of the 1994 season. He didn't bring it out. So, even if Steve had cars, how could I be sure that we'd see them at a race in 1995? Mike was assuring me that it would happen, but I had my doubts.

I admit I never had the opportunity to see a Hardtop race at Vallejo Speedway. If I was in the stands with my parents, I was too young to remember anything. By the time I started going to the races, it was Antioch Speedway. Vallejo Speedway was still running for the last few years, but I was watching the old Sportsman division. Then my dad would tell me stories about Vallejo Speedway, though he enjoyed watching the Sportsman division at Antioch. Going to Vallejo Speedway was never really discussed. Through my dad's stories and others, I began to build up an appreciation of Hardtop racing as years went on, but maybe I didn't quite appreciate the love people had for Hardtops even in 1994.

It is interesting that I had an occasion during 1993 to walk the old Vallejo Speedway. It still stood there underneath the overgrown weeds. The homes were encroaching on the track off of Turns 1 and 2, but there was lots of space out there even at that time. It was a sad occasion to walk a track that sat Idle for over a decade, thinking about all the memories that were made there. Thinking that the place could have still held races for a decade after it closed at the end of the 1979 season. I've shared those pictures from 1993 on the web and they are somewhere in the blog archives.

I didn't quite appreciate that Hardtop racing could have made a comeback at that time. Mike McCann had his successful run as promoter at Cottage Grove by the end of the 1980s and in the early part of the next decade did some good things for Marysville Raceway. He would head to Eugene next, where he would book some OTRO Hardtop races. It wasn't until we got past the mid-1990s that Mike introduced his own Hardtop division to Sunset Speedway. He didn't really agree with the six cylinder rules of the OTRO and wanted to go with eight cylinders. Considering the success he had, I think he was right. His Sunset Speedway rules were the foundation upon which the California Hardtop Association was built.

Johnson had enough of a racing mind that he would have put together a good set of rules for Hardtops. That is something I never doubted. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that we had only put a year of effort into this classic style Super Modified concept and still needed to work on building it into something. I know part of the reason Johnson was looking in this direction was because he was tired of butting heads with the NCMA and wanted to establish something else on a budget that he could afford. Hardtops would have fit that bill. He was telling me we had two cars from him and two from Woodburn and there would be others. Mike always knew how to make a sales pitch when he was pushing for something. 

At some point, he reached out to me to discuss the possibility of a Bay Area or Vallejo Speedway Hall of Fame. He talked about collecting memorabilia and that sort of thing and making a go of it. I think even in the mid-1990s I was talking occasionally about an Antioch Speedway Hall of Fame and honoring the heritage of the sport there. I have always been a history minded person. However, I wasn't keen on working with Mike at that point. I felt like my involvement with him in the CMA helped give him a seat at the table again, and he ran with the NCMA for a few years after that, sometimes bringing three or four cars to one of their races. He was also the very first NCMA pavement race winner at Altamont, so he had his opportunity and had come full circle with that. He even had an occasion or two to support the Spec Sprint effort at Antioch when we started it up.

It's kind of funny that Mike McCann discovered Mike Johnson while browsing through Craigslist. Mike has moved across the country, or at least he was living back east at that time a year or two ago. He was selling a Hardtop and it looks like he might have actually been building cars and selling them. I know he sold the cars he had before leaving the state, but in a way it's kind of nice that his love of Hardtops was still keeping him involved in the sport. I'm not sure I would be keen on doing business with him, but I think you've got a 50-50 chance of coming out okay in the deal. Some may be okay with those odds.

McCann didn't pass the opportunity to reach out to Mike. There was a number associated with the ad, and he decided to make the call. I'm trying to recall the ad and how it was worded, but it said something about Johnson being a Modified Hall of Famer. Me and Mike looked at each other and chuckled. Hall of Famer? However, it really is true. Johnson had been inducted into the NCMA Hall of Fame at some point, so technically he was a Modified Hall of Famer. They did call those cars Modifieds for several years, though they would never be confused for actual Super Modifieds. I think all that McCann managed to get out when Johnson picked up the phone was, "Is this the Modified Hall of Famer?" 

Okay, McCann and I laughed over that one for a while, and I even entertained the idea of calling Mike myself. He didn't think that Johnson would pick up the phone, but I was kind of worried that he would. Johnson's never had any reason not to talk to me. I've always treated him fairly and been an advocate for him. The biggest reason I didn't was because I was concerned about the sales pitch he might put on me. I could hear it in my head how we could do this or that and he had a plan. I couldn't bring myself to make that phone call before that window of opportunity closed.

I do think the timing in 1995 would have been good for a Hardtop revival of sorts. At that point, I know Antioch was doing quite well with a full field of Grand American Modifieds along with Street Stocks, a new Hobby Stock class and a rotation that included Dwarf Cars, NCMA Modifieds and Mini Sprints. There was no shortage of cars. Therefore, if a half dozen Hardtops were allowed in the picture, it probably wouldn't have taken too much track time for it to happen. The plus that the group might have had in their favor was Bert Bockover was married to the track manager and his family had a history with Hardtop racing at Vallejo Speedway. He probably would have been an advocate for this.

I don't really think it would have been that difficult to get track time for Hardtops in 1995. I think the look of these cars could have sold it pretty well, and as Bonnema would prove in his Hardtop hunter days, you could track these cars down if you were resourceful enough back then. Bonnema was doing it before the internet really exploded. I could see a Hardtop division getting into double digits within a few years. There would have been lots of potential. We did get our first taste of nostalgia when Chuck Griffin brought back the old Sportsman division at Merced Speedway in 1999, and that division continues to this day. 

I think the other thing that swayed me to keep my focus on Antioch Speedway was I was trying to figure out my future. There was a part of me that was seriously thinking about retiring from the sport at that time. Though my magazine was beginning to experience more success than ever, I felt like the real opportunities I needed weren't ever going to come my way. That's one of the reasons it was easy for me to take on a project like Mike's CMA or the NCMA before that, and I'm proud of what I was able to do in that effort. However, I knew I needed to focus more on seeing what I could make of my career in the sport as it was. 

The rumblings were starting again in the 2000s. For one thing, Mike McCann led his group to Sacramento and Orland for a weekend visit in 2002. I never got around to asking Mike exactly what it was he was aiming for here, but he didn't make a repeat performance after that. It's interesting to note that my friend Don O'Keefe and Steve Sutherland discussed the possibility of Don helping restore the Tommy Thomson Hardtop and possibly getting an opportunity to drive it a little bit in some sort of Hardtop revival. Don declined and eventually moved back to Indiana where he and his wife Linda are enjoying life and racing when they can.

While McCann was was winding down his time as promoter at Sunset Speedway, Chuck Prather wasn't done. He decided to grab a hold of the Hardtop effort in California himself, leading to some Hardtop races at Sacramento and Roseville with his own group. Chuck was quite serious about this as he owned over half a dozen cars and at one point took out a full-page spread in Racing Wheels to promote the group. Chuck tried working out a deal with the people at Sacramento to promote the dirt track and even took a look at Dixon prior to the Outlaw Kart group building the track that sits there now. It was just the oval track with nothing around it when Chuck was discussing things with the property owner.

Prather couldn't resist the call of promoting a race track again and ended up buying Coos Bay Speedway, where he had a decade-long run in building up a program there. He eventually sold all of the Hardtops after attempting to do a Hardtop division there. However, he managed to keep the Hardtop discussion going in California long enough for others to answer the call. This came in the form of Conrad Cavallaro and his twin brother Carmen Cavallaro building cars along with Mike McClure. This was the nucleus that formed the California Hardtop Association a few years later.

I look back and marvel at Ken Bonnema and his racing career, because he's managed to dabble in all sorts of interesting divisions. He's always had fun doing that. As the Hardtop hunter, he managed to build a few cars and managed to start getting race dates at Chowchilla Speedway when Tom Sagmiller promoted the place. Of course, the Okie Bowl Hardtop group came into being and had a few drivers that would go to Chowchilla. The Bakersfield Hardtops still thrive along with the California Hardtops and the more recently created Bay Area Hardtops.

I marvel at the fact that there are probably over 40 Hardtops in Northern California in various states of repair. People are almost as interested in this division as they are the Super Modifieds, which thrive under the Legends of Kearney Bowl moniker. Everything old is new again. Hardtops, Sportsman and Super Modifieds. 

It's kind of interesting to look back at 1995 when Mike Johnson was ready to turn the CMA into something different. No, I didn't take the bait. I walked away. However, looking back, if I'd have wholeheartedly supported Mike and kept the press going, I have little doubt that he would have begun an effort. I think it would have taken off, but I'm not certain that Johnson would have lasted long at the helm of that deal either. I guess we'll never know.

Keeping The Sport Alive

The Search For The Next New Race Track

In racing, it's inevitable that some people who have had a nice racing career or are longtime fans dream of having their own race track. It's a natural progression for some. I can picture racing friends enjoying a few beers after a race and talking about what their race track would be like. Of course, the promoter running their track isn't doing it right. They'll say something along the lines of, "If I had a race track, I'd do it differently. I'd do it better." Of course, there's a lot more to running a race track than just opening the gates and putting cars out there.

I'm watching with curiosity as a friend and racing media colleague, Cory Penfold, begins to pursue his own dream of having a race track. Cory happens to have enough property that building a track became a possibility. At this point, he hasn't opened to full business, but he has staged events there. It's a nice little banked 1/8 mile dirt track that has hundreds of hours put into it. They race Outlaw Karts, both caged and flat karts. They've actually had a couple of opportunities during this virus down time to go out there and race a little bit. I know Cory is dreaming a little bigger, whether it happens there or in another location. I'll let him tell his story in his time. 

It's really not a down time in terms of race track opportunities in California. Several tracks dot the state of California from the south to the north. Many of these are at fairgrounds, and some are on private properties. The state of Oregon isn't as blessed with race tracks. There are currently nine outdoor venues for big car racing, and I'd say there is room for a few more tracks if an enterprising would be promoter with a big enough budget came knocking on the door with the right proposal. 

Going the fairgrounds route seems to be the best choice. There are still several fairgrounds in the state that have nice grandstands and the space, but they don't have a race track. Considering how the previous California governor revoked some of the state funds for fairgrounds, this means that they are looking for other ways to bring in revenue. I think that some of these locations would be receptive to opening a track if the right proposal were made. If they could generate another $20,000 or more per year, why not give it a try? All that awaits is a promoter. 

There are some downsides as we are currently going through the virus lockdown. Given the state's hard stance on things, fairgrounds racing facilities might be the slowest to get back to normal in the state. After all, you don't really own that race track if you're promoting there. You're simply leasing that property for the contracted amount of time from the state. That could be three years, five years or maybe you've managed to get a 10 year deal. There have actually been tracks that have held closed practices in California, but they weren't at fairgrounds locations yet as of this writing.

If you're looking to open a track on private property, you have to go through many different hurdles. What is the land designated for? How close are you to a residential area? You're building everything from the ground up, so how much money do you have to invest? It's not impossible to build a track, but you're definitely going to have to invest. I'm aware that in the last 20 years, Contra Costa County has had a couple of potential tracks that have at least been discussed.

It was around 2000 when a possible race track was the subject of discussion at the old Martinez dump site. Think about it. What else are you going to do with that land? I've had this discussion with Mike McCann concerning another potential landfill location not far from where we are located that he believes would make a great race track location. Mike talks about how you could put in temporary structures. Food trailer, portable grandstands and so on. Sign a lease of 5 or 10 years. It might be that the track goes away at the end of 10 years. I'm not sure what the exact proposal was in Martinez, but discussions didn't last for more than a few months. It's interesting that one of the people involved in those discussions actually was part of the promotional group at another fairgrounds track further north.

In the 1990s, there happened to be some discussion about building a NASCAR facility at the Byron airport location. It was talked about enough that this was even written in the local newspapers. This was also at a time when the Sand Hill race track had a growing Outlaw Kart program on an oval track built on the property. Complaining neighbors put an end to what was actually a successful program. They also had clearly defined rules on what they could and couldn't run, ending at 1200cc motorcycle engine vehicles. They've been fighting for the cause at the Sand Hill location ever since and are able to do some racing, though most of it is two-wheeled.

The Byron location discussion sort of went away, but there have been indications in recent years that a track could still be built there. Reportedly, there's an interest in having a big pavement track there along with a drag strip and a dirt oval. The snag is you'll need to invest a lot of money. Somebody with that kind of money might be able to write themselves a deal that keeps him in charge of a facility in that location for years to come. There was actually one interested party, but they would prefer to start with a dirt track and go from there. Building a racing program in that location, even just starting with dirt track racing, is still going to take a while. You don't just build a track and suddenly everything pops.

The concern is that Contra Costa County could end up without a race track in the near future. Though there are no major complaints at the fairgrounds location, this is a fluid situation. Given all the construction happening In Antioch, you never know when a movement will begin to use the property for something else. Antioch Speedway wasn't actually the first dirt track in Contra Costa County. That honor goes to Contra Costa Speedway in Pacheco, which started back in 1946. For 14 year, they raced Hardtops, Midgets and other vehicles. As luck would have it, the gates were ready to open at Antioch Speedway right after the Pacheco track closed. Contra Costa Speedway was a privately owned track, but progress in the form of the freeway put an end to that.

Vallejo was another great location for racing, not too far from Pacheco and Antioch. The track located on Broadway is the best-known Vallejo Speedway, running from the 1950s to 1979. It was privately owned. At one time, they even had a drive-in theater at the location and a bigger track that was used for special races outside of the regular smaller track. Vallejo Speedway was the place to be. Progress and complaining neighbors led to its downfall, but the sad truth was that location sat idle when it could have been open for another decade or so after it closed. Before that, there was another track in Vallejo, referred to as the China Barn track.

Sadly, there wasn't enough forward-thinking. When things are going good, you don't worry about what will happen if your beloved track closes. They're not going to close it, right? With each major shake-up at Vallejo Speedway, the crowd and the car counts took a noticeable hit. When it went from a BCRA sanctioned track to BARA, numbers went down. When the drivers made their famous strike, ending the BARA, numbers went down again. What's interesting was there happened to be a discussion in 1973 about building a track not too far down the road at Sears Point.

Sears Point was actually a thriving road racing and drag strip location. They ran all sorts of different cars, so building a dirt track somewhere on the facility seemed to be a natural fit. The track was rumored to have actually been built, but a race was never held there. The drivers from Vallejo Speedway took their show on the road to Petaluma Speedway in 1973 before returning to Vallejo Speedway a year later. Maybe the desire to build the Sears Point location was merely to give the drivers another choice, but it actually could have been the replacement track for Vallejo Speedway.

By the time Vallejo Speedway closed, the Vallejo Fairgrounds still had a thriving horse racing track. They were not interested in entertaining a motorsports program, and suddenly the county had no auto racing track. Whether there was any sort of discussion about putting a race track anywhere nearby or not, I haven't heard. I can only speak to what happened years later at the Solano County Fairgrounds. An enterprising promoter named Steve Hazelton saw the opportunity to build a little track at the fairgrounds. This would be for Outlaw Kart racing, although he also dared to run an occasional Mini Stock race. 

By all accounts, this was a successful endeavor that launched the racing careers of a few drivers who are still competing to this day, 20 years later. Steve got complaints from people that led him to have to relocate his little track to another part of the fairgrounds. That didn't stop him from doing that and keeping the show going, but he knew that the writing was on the wall. At that point, other locations were scouted. One such place was at an undisclosed location in American Canyon, which would have been perfect. There was another location.

Down the road in Dixon, they had an MX track. Riders like to get down in the dirt there. There's also a Kart road course on the property. In the back, a 1/5 mile banked oval had been built. Occasionally, drivers from various other classes of big cars would come make some laps there to shake down their motors. This seemed like the perfect location for a track. Steve wasn't the only person looking, and there were other people interested in doing bigger things at that location. Most noteworthy, Chuck Prather was looking for a place to run his Hardtops and other races, but he couldn't come to terms with the property owners. 

However, Hazleton also wasn't the only person looking to put a Kart program on the dirt track location. Some of the families who were actually a part of the Vallejo Speedway 2 program formed a group called CORA. They ended up getting the location and taking their time to build the infrastructure around the track. They've been holding races at Dixon Speedway for about 15 years now. The current promoter is Jeremy Prince, who has various Micro Sprint divisions on any given race day. Prince has also dabbled in Mini Stock and Dwarf Car racing, though that hasn't happened recently. In an interesting side note, Dixon was no stranger to racing. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, they ran some Sprint Car programs at the Dixon Fairgrounds before the track was taken out of there.

In the last decade, the Solano County Fairgrounds has stopped holding horse races. The fairgrounds is a huge property. They've started renting storage areas there, which is undoubtedly a money maker. There have been interested promoters looking to take a fraction of the one mile track location to cut a quarter-mile oval. Given the racing heritage that Vallejo has had, a racing program there would be a natural fit. Sadly, things are just too built up in Vallejo. The property has too much value, and the fairgrounds personnel doesn't seem to be entertaining anyting. There are other fairgrounds that might hear a proposal, but this doesn't seem to be one of them. 

It's probably not a bad idea for some of the promoters of longtime racing locations to take a look at the areas around them and start mapping out a contingency plan. Petaluma, for instance, has had racing going back to the 1950s at the fairgrounds. After 2022, will there be a race track in Petaluma? If not, is there anywhere they can relocate? Could the Sears Point dirt track idea resurface? The discussion of the future of the track in Watsonville comes up every few years. Again, racing in this area goes back long before the speedway that was built in 1960 at the fairgrounds. Where would they go next?

Alameda County has had a couple of well-known tracks. Obviously, Altamont Raceway Park comes with some interesting history dating back to the 1960s, but they've also held many races there through the years. Prior to closing around 2007, the track had its longest run of more than a decade. It still sits there, though the facility is in a state of decay. They use the track itself for driving schools and Tesla car testing. The other track was the iconic Baylands Raceway Park. Drag racing was king there, but they also had dirt track racing dating back to the Fremont Speedway in the 1970s.

When the Fremont track took on the Baylands moniker, things grew bigger and better. The old saying was, "There's always something happening at Baylands Raceway." This is because that was true. They had a smaller track for Micros, Karts and Motorcycles. The big track held some of the biggest Sprint Car shows ever, and they also had the biggest Mini Stock program in the state along with running various other Stock Car and open wheel vehicles. It was a track that maybe wasn't the prettiest to look at, but many fond memories were made there. One of the biggest architects of its success was a man named David Vodden.

When David could see that they were going to lose that track, he began scouting out other locations. He found one in Vacaville. Years ago, they had the Vaca Valley drag strip. There was a bit of a racing history there, but many years had passed. The property still stood there, waiting for something. Vodden tried, and given his vast amount of knowledge, he was maybe the best chance they had at success. Sadly, it didn't work out. The Baylands dream was dead, and now there's no racing in Alameda County.

In the last couple of decades, another potential track was about to launch in Rio Vista. Dan Simpson had taken over the famed  King of the West Series and was trying to breathe new life into it. He had a big enough property as his family also had horses. He did cut a quarter-mile track at this location, but the people in the city were not too keen on him hosting any official races there. He did get some use out of the track with various Sprint Car practice sessions, but his dream of actually opening this as a racing venue was not to be. The track itself has been unused since.

One of the biggest challenges in building a race track is location. In most of the cases discussed above, there was a driver base in need of a place to race. When discussing building a new track, you're also talking about having to build up a whole new program. If you start with a fairgrounds location, at least you have some of the infrastructure in place. You've got grandstands and some concession areas to start with, but you're still going to have to build a little bit. If you are able to find the property to build on that is zoned properly, you still have even bigger costs. There's a persistent rumor that Vodden could strike at any time with a new dirt track in Northern California, though no announcements have been made yet. 

The fairgrounds in Gridley had an opportunity to rise again as a car racing facility. Not long after he walked away from Marysville Raceway, Mike McCann had an intriguing offer from legendary promoter John P Soares. Soares was still in the midst of his successful run as promoter of Petaluma Speedway, and he made a trip up to Marysville to have lunch with McCann. The two ended up taking a trip to the Gridley Fairgrounds, where they met personally with the Fair Manager. Word has it that a deal was already in place, and all McCann needed to do was sign on the dotted line and the track would live again. Mike was looking north for a return to Oregon, and though the offer was tempting, he headed back there and would end up running Eugene Speedway with Chuck Prather.

Tom Sagmiller is the most recent promoter to open up a track in Central California, and he did it at the Chowchilla Fairgrounds. There had long been some bad feelings associated with Merced Speedway management, and there had been rumors that if a change couldn't be made with management, a new location would be pursued for racing. It just so happened that Charlie Ruth, the principal investor behind Sagmiller, had an intriguing proposal. He took him to the grandstands at the Chowchilla Fairgrounds and proposed the idea of opening a track there.

The timing was perfect. A long racing history stretching back to the 1930s in San Jose came to a sad end in 1999. The fairgrounds location there was closing the track due to a proposed amphitheater that never happened. There had been people trying to save San Jose Speedway, but when the iconic grandstands were destroyed within a couple of years of the track's closure, ideas were taken off the table. To this day, there's nothing built on the location of the old track. Might the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds representatives hear any sort of racing proposal for that location again? Would somebody want to make a proposal?

At the time, Ruth was talking common sense to Sagmiller, who has never been one to back down from a challenge. Other investors got behind Sagmiller, and they began building Chowchilla Speedway in late 1999. It opened for business in 2000. Some big races were held at that location through the years, but things were bulldozed at that location within the last two years due to the last failed attempt to promote by Joe Diaz Jr. The grandstands, however, still sit there. It's likely that if any racing happens there again, it will be related to the Micro Sprints and Outlaw Karts.

Fairgrounds can be enticing for would-be promoters. One of the most unlikely locations in Northern California was about ready to get a race track. Around 2010, talk at the Trinity County Fairgrounds in Hayfork centered around making use of the track that was sitting there dormant for years. Clyde Cordell was the man leading the charge, and within a few years, the dream of racing began in that small town. The racing program still continues as they move closer to completing their first full decade.

Location is important when it comes to building a race track. On one hand, you do want a big population to draw from. The more people you can draw from, the bigger your potential crowd could be. The downside to building a new location is that the heavily populated areas may not be as receptive to the noise produced by auto racing. They get so opposed to that idea that they're not interested in hearing how much revenue is created in the area on any given race night. Contra Costa, Santa Clara and Alameda counties are all prime locations to have a race track somewhere, and only Antioch Speedway in Contra Costa County has anything. Of course, if somebody were going to take on such an endeavor, they need money.

Property itself doesn't come cheap. If you have to purchase the property, that's going to be costly enough. Maybe you can strike up a deal with the person who owns the property. If the place is zoned right, you could potentially build a track. However, you're still going to have to deal with certain county and city ordinances. This means going through all of the laws and sitting through meetings. You're going to have to hear what it is they won't allow, and you're going to have to have an idea of what your proposal will be. They want to know what's being built, what's being run, what all is happening and what impact it will have on the environment. The private property path won't come cheap, and obviously you want to have some assurances that you are not going to build a track that will get shut down in just a few years.

Even if you do build a track, what are you going to run there? Yes, there are still many racers in California, but most of them already have home tracks. You can entice the adventurous racers into coming to check out your track, but you're still going to have to build up a base. This becomes tricky. On one hand, the cheaper the race car, the easier it will be to get new drivers. On the other hand, the faster the race car, the more likely you're going to have fans who want to come check out the program. Unfortunately, speed costs money, and money could be a detriment to building your car count. These are the challenges you have as a promoter at a new location.

As an armchair promoter, my inclination would be to go with affordable divisions that enable the track to produce good car counts. I know people want to see speed, but if they have a full Main Event of 20 Mini Stocks and 20 Hobby Stocks, are they going to ignore it? Are they going to ignore competitive fields, even if they aren't the fastest cars out there? If they support that in good enough numbers, then the track could deliver special tour races for Sprint Cars or other divisions. By starting on a lower budget, you give yourself a fighting chance to build the infrastructure and set things up to last for the long haul.

I have often wondered if the Arena Racing idea could be something to pursue as a new racing venue. Get enough property to expand a little bit after you get started, and yet start with a little one-eighth mile. Maybe put an X in the middle for Figure 8 racing, and run Mini Stocks. Follow the model as set out by the Salinas Fairgrounds agra race or the Alameda County Figure 8. Even having eight car Main Events on a tight little track gives the fans a lot of action and can be entertaining. This particular idea isn't just something that's happened in these locations in California. There have been other West Coast locations and other venues across the country that have done similar things. 

You have to be careful when you get creative like that to not phrase things in the agreement in such a way that restricts your ability to do bigger things. Words definitely mean things. While you want to start out doing events like this and would be interested in continuing these types of events as you expand, the ultimate goal is to have a bigger track for bigger events. You're giving the people of the city another form of entertainment on any given weekend. I'd be intrigued to see if a proposal like this could work. Maybe you even build a venue with portable stuff at first that can easily be removed.

Metcalf Park in San Jose was a Micro Sprint track. This was around 1984 or so when it was built, and one of the instigators was Mike McCann. Mike has actually been involved in quite a few things, and before he became the promoter of Cottage Grove Speedway and launched his successful big track promoting career, he was promoting Micro Sprint events. McCann had already raced successfully in Super Modifieds, Midgets and other cars. Interesting side note, but if he had his way, Chowchilla Speedway might have become a regular racing venue in the 1980s. Unfortunately, NASCAR West Coast brass didn't think Mike had what it takes to open a track at that location under their banner. I will chalk it up as their loss.

Mike had held Micro races at several different venues during his time, but this location in San Jose was perfect. He had people who believed in the idea and they all pitched in. Unfortunately, Mike's health wasn't doing so well at that time, and he had to step away. It wasn't much longer before he did land on his feet and got the Cottage Grove Speedway. He was still in touch with the people who were running this little track, and it was doing well for itself until politics came into the picture. These people actually built this track at this location, and the county was keen on entertaining somebody else as promoter. The club was aced out. 

In a fitting display of people power, the club decided after their last race that everything was coming with them. They pulled an all-nighter and hauled virtually everything from the facility. New people might come in there and run a track, but they were going to have to build the entire infrastructure to make it happen. The previous team wasn't going to have their hard work taken from them. 

The moral of the story is the point I'm trying to make. Depending on the location on which you were going to build a racing facility, portable structures might be the way to go. If it's easy enough for you to move the bleachers, k-rails, fencing, concessions and all of that, then at least you have an opportunity to sell your investment if the race track goes under. Or, you can build more permanent things if it looks like you're going to be be able to make a longer go at it.

The easiest way to achieve the dream of being a promoter is probably to go to an unused fairgrounds and scout it out. Some locations might not be interested. But what of someplace like Mariposa or Gridley or Colusa County? It's just sitting there without being used. What if you could step in and make a proposal for a 10 to 20 race season? I think one of the things that hurts some locations like those in the Bay Area is the expectation of 30 events. Let's face it, it's hard to keep your local racers coming back to the track in big enough numbers unless you are shuffling enough divisions and giving guys the night off. If fans don't see enough cars they don't want to spend their money with you every week.

The advantage of going to a more reasonable schedule is you have an opportunity to make the most out of a limited schedule. If you're running a dozen races, you can focus on getting as many cars as possible out of that. It also gives you more time to do ground work in the city and see what makes it tick. The fairgrounds might not be getting anything out of that part of the facility other than the Destruction Derby they might have during the County Fair or an occasional rodeo. Therefore, even if they could make a minimum of $15,000 or $20,000 guaranteed from you, it's more money than they were getting before. You might be surprised what fairgrounds locations might listen to you if you made the right proposal. They need revenue to keep these places open, now more than ever.

People might think it's impossible, but what was done at Grass Valley in the last year serves as a reminder that if you believe in your idea, anything is possible. We haven't seen racing at Ernie Purcell Memorial Speedway in Grass Valley since 1993. Some people will say that if the management at the time had been more cooperative with the fairgrounds, maybe it wouldn't have ended like it did. I'd have to look at the situation more to give an opinion on that, but racing died there at that point. A promotional effort led by Patrick Weger of Vintage Duels had a unique idea to make racing happen within the confines of the Rodeo Arena at the Grass Valley Fairgrounds.

As with most fairgrounds, they have a nice grandstands to work with, meaning the fans would be comfortable. The concession stands were still there, and the fairgrounds wasn't as close-minded about motorsports as a way to generate revenue. Obviously, there are some people opposed to the idea. It was a case where baby steps were what needed to be taken. In October of 2019, 14 Dwarf Car competitors showed up to a pretty nice crowd of spectators. This unique program, by all accounts, was a success. A race was to be held in June, but given the virus situation, it has been postponed. It's expected that another Vintage Duels event will be held at a date to be named.

People were saying you'd never see racing in Grass Valley again. People lamented that thought, because there were some great shows held at the old track through the years. Then again, people were complaining about Dwarf Cars competing in a Rodeo Arena, but that's just a bit short-sighted. Motorsports racing was happening again in Grass Valley. That's the takeaway. It's all because somebody looked at the budget they had, got their proposal in order, made the pitch and then made it happen. It's all about what you believe in, and until you hear no, you haven't asked enough questions or tried hard enough. 

Maybe talking about building a race track in this day and age is crazy. Then again, it's not impossible to make a new track happen. There are locations sitting there, just waiting for somebody to come bring them to life again. Porterville and Pearsonville are two tracks that come to mind. The track in Worden, Oregon still sits vacant. A wetlands has claimed Eugene Speedway, but enough property still sits there that racing could still be a thing. It's all in what you want to see happen. For those locations that still have tracks, and those that might be threatened, it doesn't hurt to keep an eye open for other locations near by. It couldn't hurt to put that proposal together. You never know when you may need it in order to keep racing alive in your area.