Top 10 Craziest Things... #1

#1 – Stanton Family Speedway 5/31/03

What Happened:  Having moved to Wilmington, Ohio the previous Fall, I was pretty unfamiliar with the tracks in the area.  Unfortunately, that is what led to this disastrous trip.  Here is the (now) infamous portion of my column “Puttin’ On A Show” that talks about Stanton Family Speedway.  This column originally appeared in the 6/3/03 edition of RPM Racing News.

All week long, I'd been planning on heading to Portsmouth Raceway Park on Saturday night.  When Saturday came, rains forced the cancellation of every track in the area...   except PRP.  So, I called the track at 3:45pm.  Still running.  I arrive at the track at 5:30pm.  Closed.  No one there.  What the hell?

Leaving Portsmouth and heading to...

Knowing that K-C had the night off, I got out my trusty 2003 Rand McNally Road Atlas and my faithful 2003 National Speedway Directory and started looking for tracks running Late Models.

Called Brushcreek...   cancelled.  Called Brown County...   cancelled.  Called Mud Lick Valley (?!) in Foxport, KY...   cancelled.  Called Stanton Family Speedway in Goddard, KY...   got the answering machine.  "Yeah, it's 12pm on Saturday we're still racing."  Hmmm.  So I called the Stanton Family residence...   got another answering machine.  "Hi, if you're calling about the race track, it's 2:45pm Saturday afternoon and racing is on for tonight."

Now, if I may, I shall get on my soap box for just a minute.  Let this be a lesson to any and all track promoters out there.  Please have someone there to answer your phone on race day.  If you've rained out, go ahead and cue up the machine.  But if you're racing, it sure would be nice to have an actual real live person to talk to.

At any rate, I take off from an eerily abandoned Portsmouth Raceway Park and head south.  As I'm driving there I'm thinking to myself, 'Stanton Family Speedway...   hmmm...   I don't know about this."  But then I think back to last night's outstanding ALMS race at Limaland Motorsports Park, which featured four different leads and five lead changed in the 25 lap A-Main.  Last night, I followed my heart and it was the right decision.  Tonight, my gut feeling was that this place would be "less than desirable", but my heart said to go and watch some racing.  Heart wins again, and I keep the hammer down.

I finally get to Goddard, KY (which, by the way, is right there next to...  um...  absolutely nothing) at 7pm.  Drive back behind some houses, a church, and a cemetery on narrow one-lane dirt road (yes, it was one-lane AND narrow) and I'm thinking "what the hell".  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a race track appears.  For just a split second, I was pretty stoked.

The remotely-located Stanton Family Speedway.  Only 9 vehicles in the spectator parking lot.

I pull in and talk to the friendly folks at the gate.  I asked some random track worker if they had a lot of cars tonight since everyone else rained out and he excitedly said, "Oh yeah!  I think this is the most we've had all year!"

To get the General Admission section of this joint, you must drive right through the pits.  As I'm driving through the pits, I start looking around and I'm thinking that there's not too many cars here.  Oh well, there's probably more of the pits that I can't see.

I had to drive through the pits to get to the General Admission section.

I guess that was just wishful thinking.  Here's what they had...   No Late Models (I later found out the LMs were dropped after just one week when they didn't get any cars).  Instead, the pits were "stuffed" with 33 cars in 5 classes.  No, that's not a typo.  5 Modifieds, 6 Super Streets, 6 Super Bombers, 4 Bombers, and 12 Chevettes.  Oh boy.

They announce (through the one little speaker you could barely hear out of) that tonight is a Tag Team Chevette race.  So I'm thinking, 'well hell, this might actually be fun.  These guys will probably go out and drop kick some guy they don't like into the wall and then pull into the infield and "tag" in their teammate to come out and finish him off.'

Had that actually happened, it would have been a blessing and put me out of my misery.

What actually happened was all the Chevette drivers were randomly paired with another Chevette driver.  All drivers qualified, with your time and your teammate's time combined.  Driver #1 will run a 10 lap feature in his own car.  The 2nd feature starts the way your teammate finishes the first feature.  The two winners split the $600 first-place money.

Well, I'm certainly glad I drove all over Hell's half acre for this.

So, at 8:15pm they finally decide to start qualifying.  And they qualified everything.  Every single car in the pits (yep, all 33 of 'em) qualified.  Two laps, one car at time.  Kill me now.

Anyone have a lawn mower?  Or at least a weedeater...??

The excitement of qualifying finally ended at 9pm.  Then they announce it's time for intermission.  Yes, intermission.  And intermission lasted at least an hour.  Then they announce it's time for the features.  That's right.  No heats, just features.  For the third time tonight, I'm thinking 'what the hell'?!

So I'm watching the double 10-lap Tag Team Chevette fiasco.  I watched a 4 car Modified feature (one car DNS).  I watched a 5 car Super Street feature (again, one car DNS).  I watched a 4 car Super Bomber feature (two cars DNS).  All of those were just as exciting as you might imagine and the thought of slashing my own wrists did cross my mind.

Is there really any need to go over the results?  Local Jabronee #12 won the Modified feature by 1/2 a track.

This place is a 1/4-mile paperclip, but it's wide enough to handle Late Models.  I have no idea why they were dropped.  And I have no idea why there were 33 cars TOTAL there.  Remember...  this was "a lot" of cars for them, as I was told upon my arrival, and let's not forget that every other track in the area was rained out.

The track has enough seating for maybe 300 people.  Maybe.  And then there's room for an additional 50 bringing in lawn chairs.  No need to worry about "Standing Room Only" tonight.  I literally counted 29 spectators, and that's no lie.

An extremely small crowd watches a heat race.

Stanton Family Speedway Notes:  The track used to be called Fleming County Speedway...   For some reason, they decided to water the track after Hot Laps.  The water truck wouldn't run so it had to be pushed around the track by the one push truck they had...   I don't recall seeing an ambulance or any medical/emergency personnel at the track...   They did have a nice little concession stand.  $2 for a cheeseburg and $1.50 for fries...   This place has the worst lighting ever.  A total of 16 VERY dim lights stood high atop 3 different light poles in the infield (4 lights for turns 1&2, 4 for the backstretch, 4 for turns 3 & 4, and 4 for the frontstretch)...   as you might imagine, this place is in the middle of nowhere.  You can't get there from here.

The crowd that gathered to watch the features wasn't very big either.

Stanton Family Speedway - I'm almost ashamed to say - is career track #49.  At any rate, I should say that the track itself is a nice track.  The surface was super smooth and very tacky.  The facilities are just very old and run-down and the entire place needs a LOT of money put into it.  I did hear that the Stanton Family is working hard to improve the place and turn around the reputation the track had built over the last few years.

Looking Back:  This column (being shown to you exactly as it appeared in that 6/3/03 edition of RPM Racing News) has gotten more laughs and more attention than I ever dreamed it would.  I actually remember at one point sitting in the stands and thinking to myself, “Am I really THIS desperate to see a race?”  Of course, the night before I saw what is still to this day one of the best 25 lap Late Model features I had ever seen.  To go from that type of race at Limaland to what I witnessed at Stanton Family Speedway, it felt like going from the champion of the world to the agony of defeat.    

The front and back straightaways at Stanton Family Speedway.

A look at turns 3 and 4 and the pit area at SFS.

Track workers prepare the 1/4-mile oval the 5/31/03 races.