POSTED December 17, 2001

A few days ago this web site passed 17,000 hits! This is truly remarkable for a small operation like ours and most of the credit goes to our web master, David T. Schaefer who does an outstanding job day in and day out! Also have to give a lot of credit to our fans and drivers who check our site on a regular basis! Had the great pleasure this past week to talk to Pat Taylor, former scorer at Mottville! She has been working and living in Indy for several years and was last at Mottville in June or May of 2000 but promised me she would return sometime during the 2002 season! I really hated to lose Pat at Mottville because she was really good at anything she did! She started out selling 50-50 tickets and then became the scorer but when the job change
came up we lost her! You might well be amazed how many people have inquired if we are still racing and if we are running a January race! Up until a few days ago I thought there might still be an outside chance of running a January race but as of now I don't think so. It can be a lot of work to get ready and the profit is very, very small! Last year Paul Scott started plowing snow at 9
pm and finished around 6 am! I left at 5 and went home for about 2 hours of sleep! Well over 11 years ago, on October 30,2025 I signed the papers to purchase the Mottville Speedway (then called South West Michigan Speedway) and Ralph McGlothlen handed me the keys! I was instantly more in debt than I had ever
been in my entire lifetime but I had achieved a life long dream! Even with my experience as a car owner, fan, announcer, public relations director and (as a youth) working in concession stands and doing clean-up and watching my father help run several tracks I still had no idea what I was getting into! For starters on opening night in 1991 we could not get the sewage system to
work and the rest rooms in front all flooded! (it turned out all that was wrong was the circuit breaker was off!). Then the bridge in Mottville was closed for the season and this forced long detours for people coming from the west! A few seasons later Kalamazoo switched from racing on Friday night to Saturday night and that really hurt our crowds big time! A few seasons later a brand new track opened only about 14 miles away! None of this could
ever have been predicated or imagined on October 30,1990!
Along the way I have had about every problem you can imagine in those 11 years but somehow we have survived! Only Mike Bird at the South Bend Motor Speedway has been at it longer than me in those 11 years! I went from "rookie promoter" to 2nd veteran! Kalamazoo is only on its 2nd owner, I think Galesburg has had 3, Angola several, Plymouth 4 and New Paris 2 during those 11 years. Several years I finally hit on a plan that worked! After many years of losing money and trying to be like other tracks I decided to cut expenses and run more nights. In big corporations they call this "down sizing" and it happens all the time now. We went to a "bare bones" staff with lots of volunteers and cut out late models and the last 3 seasons have finally paid off! We are certainly not getting rich by any means but we are making a
profit and a profit is needed if we are to repave the track and get new bleachers down the road! Over the years I have learned a few things about what is needed to run a speedway! First of all you had better really love the sport because unless you do its simply not worth it! No one that I am aware of in this area makes
their full time living running a speedway! Its a full time job with part time pay (at best) so you had better love it! Also you had better have a very thick skin! I used to coach and referee
and umpire so I was used to having people yell at me! You will make decisions over and over that please no one and about the very best you can even hope for is to please about half the people involved! Remember when you make a call one driver may be pleased but another will not! Be prepared to do all the jobs no one else wants to do like cleaning out clogged urinals and toilets! I have done that more times than I can count! It is far from being glamorous! But sometimes you get a real good car count and a nice crowd and a great night of racing its all worthwhile! More often the weather is bad and the car count and crowd are down and everything goes wrong! That is when you
have to really love the sport! One final piece of advice I would give would be to get and keep the best track officials you can! But make sure they support you and work for you and not against you! Sounds simple enough but in reality can be difficult! I had one heck of a time getting a good set of track officials! Lots of
people want to be a track official but they want lots of nights off and they will turn on you at the first sign of trouble! I have really been blessed with good track officials for at least the last 3 years or more! So if you want to own a speedway go for it but be forewarned! Until next week stay warm and stay dry!