Showing posts with label Rockingham Dragway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rockingham Dragway. Show all posts

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Rockin' in Rockingham (a story from 2008)

(NOTE: I wrote this in 2008 for The Racing Journal.)


Rockin' in Rockingham

By Tom Gillispie
TRJ EDITOR

ROCKINGHAM — For the first time since 1999, there's plenty of activity on both sides of U.S. 1, about eight miles north of Rockingham. And the two racing facilities will be working together.
Former ARCA champion Andy Hillenburg bought North Carolina Speedway from Bruton Smith in January, and changed the track's name to Rockingham Speedway. He has an ARCA race, the Carolina 500, set for noon on May 4, and a Hooters ProCup race, the American 200, set for Nov. 1. And Hillenburg has an all-Mustang weekend, "Super 'Stang Fest", scheduled in June.
Rockingham Dragway remains as busy as ever. The new event at the dragway is the All-Harley Drag Racing Association event, the Screamin' Eagle Performance Parts Nationals. Rockingham Dragway again will play host to two International Hot Rod Association events; the IHRA Spring Nationals are set for April 18-20, and the World Finals will close the IHRA season on Oct. 17-19.
Steve Earwood, the promoter at Rockingham Dragway, says that the speedway and dragway have worked together before, particularly providing parking for each other, and he says he'll work together closely with Hillenburg.
"It can't be a bad thing," he said of the speedway reopening. "There's more activity for our community. When the speedway closed, it was a blow to the community.
"I wish Andy the best, and I'll do what I can to help."
Earwood has held several positions in racing — he was the publicist for Raymond Beadle's Blue Max Cup team in the '80s — and he's run the dragway since 1992.
"Steve was just in the office right here," Hillenburg said. "He's been helpful and cooperative and a pleasure to work with, and definitely I can learn from, and I hope to be able to be there for him.
"We'll be doing stuff together on race events, where we're working closely together. He's got some night-time events that he's going to run on some of our weekends. We'll have rides here (for fans) on some of his race weekends. We'll do some stuff that will help both of us and bring people to the area."
Hillenburg says he's also gotten a good response from people in Richmond County.
"I like the atmosphere here," he said. "The people from the city and Richmond County have been helpful, and I'm really enjoying it. We've hired people from area and brought people in; it's a great place to raise a family or for a family to visit."
Rockingham Speedway's first action came in mid-December when five Craftsman Truck Series teams tested there for two days. Legends, Bandolero and Thunder Roadsters raced at The Rock in January, and Hillenburg's Fast Track High Performance Driving School opened for the season in mid-February.
Hillenburg, a native of Indianapolis and one of the few drivers to start both the Indy 500 and the Daytona 500, says he's in no hurry to fill the track schedule. Besides the two big races, he says his driving school will drone around the one-mile oval more than 25 dates this season, and he hopes to run a weekly program at some point.
"Eventually, we have so many things we want to do," Hillenburg said. "The list of ideas and possibilities seems endless. We want to set the groundwork with a couple of races this year and eventually get 90 percent of our driving school dates and customers over at the speedway.
"It's a work in progress."
Smith bought The Rock several years ago so he could move the Cup dates to Texas Motor Speedway. Hillenburg bought the track from Smith's Speedway Motorsports Inc. at an auction in October, and he took possession of the property Nov. 1.
"We'd been working on doing a speedway for a long time with our driving school," Hillenburg said. "We'd have better flexibility in dates and be able to also expand the driving school programs that we've had. So it's something I've been working on for the last four or five years.
"And when the Rockingham facility came up for auction, it was a matter of taking our business plan and inserting a few things there at the racetrack."
And the potential races became a bonus for Hillenburg.
While Smith was asking nearly $100 million for the track, Hillenburg found the $4.4 million still a huge amount.
"It is," he said, "but, hopefully, our business model will make all of those things work for us."
Rockingham played host to Cup and Busch races when Smith bought the track, and the natural question is: Is Hillenburg pursuing a Cup, Nationwide (formerly Busch) or truck race for 2009?
"There are endless possibilities, but it would be unfair of me now to say we're pursuing getting NASCAR back," he said. "We have to show what we can do and get the facility open and do a great job before that could possibly show up on their radar screen. We'd be in a bad position if we'd go and ask right now, I think.
"So we want to concentrate on making the Carolina 500 a great event. Down the road, who knows what can happen?"
The track looks good on the outside, and Hillenburg has said that safety inspections have been done on the catch fences and grandstands. The large grandstand on the backstretch wasn't part of the sale, and it will be trucked to Concord for use at Smith's new drag-racing facility being built at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
The track drew praise from at least one of the truck racers who tested in December.
"I've always loved this racetrack," said Johnny Benson, a former Busch Series champion. "It's the same old Rockingham. It's bumpy, you slide around and stuff, but, man, I have always loved this place; it is way cool.
"I think the truck series would be an excellent race here; they seem to put on great shows here no matter the series."
Hillenburg, the 1995 ARCA champion, won't race in his own race -- he's concentrated on the business end of racing since he last raced in '04. Bryan Silas races for him in ARCA and with Hillenburg's part-time Craftsman Truck Series team.
"There's times I wish I could jump in there and do it myself, but, at the same time, I felt I had a great career," he said.
"I'll never say never, but, at the same time, my plate is so full that it's not on the horizon."
EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com TWITTER: EDITORatWORK
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Saturday, April 2, 2016

Give 'er the gas (an auto racing feature from 2008)


 
WITH ANY LUCK, RACING WILL REMAIN A REAL GAS

By Tom Gillispie
Are racetrack promoters sweating out soaring gasoline prices? Some are; some aren't, and all are hoping for the best.

Steve Earwood, the promoter at Rockingham Dragway, says he doesn't worry.

"No, I really don't, Tom," he said. "There's sticker shock when you fill up the family car. But if you look at how much it is, it's not that much over what it was last year."

Gas prices are tough, Earwood said, but he added, "We've had two successful weekends in a row."

For competitors, prices are always high for racing fuel, and the prices vary according to the many types of cars that race at Rockingham Dragway. Earwood says that unleaded 104 octane is $6.59 a gallon; 110 leaded is $6.49; 112 octane is $6.79, and 116 octane is $9.79.

"Methanol is $5.75, but it's gone up more than gasoline," Earwood said. "In 2006, it was $2.28."

But he isn't worried.

"Goodness, no," Earwood said. "There are too many things to worry about here other than the price of gasoline. My biggest worry is the weather."

So far, gas prices, and the weather, haven't hurt him. He said that he had 320 race cars for an event last year, and 317 showed up for that race this year. And the crowds were holding well, he said.

Sherry Clifton of Hickory Motor Speedway, and Larry Thomas of Concord Motorsport Park say they are worried about the effects of gas prices, but they're hoping for the best.

"Yes, we are concerned about the price of fuel having an effect on competitors and fans," said Thomas.

Thomas says that CMP vends Sunoco Purple 110 octane racing fuel at $7 a gallon, and he expects prices to rise in a few days. It'll be the same everywhere.

"People will have to choose where they're going and where they spend their money," Clifton added. "People are not going to go to the beach or the mountains like they used to, so they can get entertainment in their own backyard. At least that's what we're hoping.

"If they're spending twice what they did last year, then they have half money at the end of the week to go and have fun on."

Fred Brown, the promoter of Wythe Raceway near Wytheville, Va., is like Earwood. He isn't worrying about gas prices; he's going to war.

Brown says that the dirt track is combating price programs by changing compression ratios from 12.5 to 1 to 9.5 or 10 to 1. The lower compression ratio will allow drivers to run lower-octane fuel and, thus, save some money.

"I'm anticipating that it's going to have an effect," Brown said. "We have a whole lot of classes, though, so it'll take a while to implement.

"It cost $6.75 last year for a gallon, and I guess it may be $7 or $8 this year."

Brown says he also will push the fact that folks can pass up traveling a distance and have a good time at the local racetrack.

"We'll do it in a positive manner," he said. "We'll really work on the fact that we have local classes, the local racetrack, and push the entertainment value. We're close to their homes, and they can get here and get home on a gallon of gas, rather than traveling a long way.

"People still love racing. If we do a good job and entertain them, they'll come."

So relax. And hope for the best.

This and that

Clifton was proud that the Hickory track won the Event Facility of the Year award given by the North Carolina Motorsports Association. "It's especially rewarding since Bowman Gray Stadium and Southern National were the other tracks nominated," she said. "Bowman Gray is a class operation, and Southern National is such a powerhouse for little old Hickory to do well against them." ...

Apparently Redwood Palms Pictures plans to do a movie on the life story of North Carolinian Junior Johnson, a racing pioneer, the 1963 Daytona 500 winner, an all-time great team owner and one of the great moonshine-haulers of all time. ...

This is interesting: Ryan Newman, the winner of the Daytona 500, has 42 Cup poles and ranks 11th on the NASCAR Cup Series career rankings. His 13 career victories put him last in victories among the top 25 pole winners in Cup history. He needs five victories to catch Geoff Bodine, who has 37 poles (16th all time) and 18 victories (24th all time). ...

I hated it when the World 600 at Charlotte became the Coca-Cola 600, and I wasn't thrilled when the superbly named Firecracker 400 at Daytona became the Pepsi 400. Now, it's gotten worse. The Pepsi 400 is becoming the Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

TRJ Editor Tom Gillispie is the author of three books, including Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr. Tom's NASCAR books are available for sale online at www.amazon.com.
(NOTE: I wrote this for The Racing Journal in 2008. TRJ, which covered short-track racing in north-central North Carolina and south-central Virginia, ended after four months because of the economy.)
EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  TWITTER: EDITORatWORK.
More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

Entries from The Dog Blog
More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie
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