POSTED JANUARY 22, 2026

We will open our 51st consecutive season of racing action at the Mottville Speedway on Saturday March 3, 2001!! Gates will open at 6 P.M. and racing will start a half hour earlier than last year, at 7 P.M. We will race every Saturday through November 24th, The Saturday following Thanksgiving. Sunday racing action makes it a double header week-end starting the Sunday after Easter, April 22nd. On Sundays we will open at 5 P.M. and race at 6 P.M., an hour earlier than last season! Sunday racing continues through November 18th, In between we will run Monday May 28th (Memorial Day), Tuesday July 3rd and Wednesday July 4th, Monday September 3rd (Labor Day). 74 dates on the tentative schedule with the 16th Annual Indiana-Michigan Challenge Cup set for October 20th and 21st. Tentative date for the mid-season championship trophy night is Sunday July 15th. Along the way we will have trophy nights and free dogs and cokes for the mothers on Mother's Day and for the fathers on Father's Day plus the veterans on Veteran's Day!

Opening March 3rd is one week earlier than previously announced. The reason? Well in looking back we have not had much of a turn-out for pre-season practice in recent years, probably due to weather. Since most of the tracks officials are on hand for the pre-season practice I figure we might as well go racing and get it started! Also it makes for a full 9 month season, March through November!

As things stand now there will be one major difference in 2001 over most of the past 10 seasons! No outside shows! Over the years we have run Vintage Modifieds, Outlaw Winged Sprints, Legends, Dwarfs, Baby Grands, Micro Sprints, Midgets, Super Mini-Cups, Formula Indy's and E-Mods plus something else I am probably forgetting! Anyway, over the past 10 years I know for certain that we have lost money on outside shows. Now we are looking at lay-offs in the auto and rv industries and many outside shows in addition to a rather large pay-off require about another $1500 in extra expense meaning you have to either get 150 more people in the stands at the standard $10 or else 100 more at $15 just for the extra expense and then you have the larger pay-off! If I could find an outside show that would pay for itself I would be more than happy to book it and book it several times just for the variety, but right now that does not look like it is going to happen!

I have been asked several times what I felt the weakening economy in our area would do to Mottville and I answered that it probably not hurt us nearly as badly as it will many tracks, since our economy classes of racing will be better suited for a slower economy than expensive late model and modified classes! In particular our new Thunder Car class should be most attractive to many people and with our economy classes we can keep our adult admission at a bargain $10! Last night I went to a minor league Hockey game in Ft. Wayne, paid $15! $3.25 for the same Pepsi that cost $1.25 at Mottville!

Got two new registrations this week! Shawn Forsyth, 3rd in 2000 in Kart Points, he registered the number 16 and his brother, Travis, 4th in Kart Points in 2000, took the number 124. Shawn is 15 years old and Travis turns 11 next month and we look forward to having them at Mottville again in 2001!

Had some more responses for the proposed February 25th "February Follies" race! Bomber Points Champion, Melissa Worthington reports her car is dug out of the snow and ready to go! The Illinois racer, Bob Lyeria, is out recruiting and has found 6 from that great state already! Keep letting me know if you want to race February 25th and we'll make a decision soon! Right now we are right on the border of having enough cars but I still have not heard from Randy Morley! Unbelievable! Even if we do not race February 25th we will definitely start March 3rd regular racing and we would hope to get 70 of the 74 nights in. Last year we managed to get in an incredible 70 of 71 scheduled but I figure that was a once in a lifetime deal!

If you want to attend our February 10th Awards Banquet, you have less than 10 days to get your $25 per ticket to us! February 1st is the deadline! After that we can not get the awards plaques by banquet time! So act fast as this will definitely be our best Awards Banquet ever!

Things are really starting to heat up now with phone calls and emails and regular mail so the 2001 racing season draws closer and I am more exited every day! Hope you are too!

Order those Banquet tickets now, and

BE THERE !!!