The rumors that the Waterford Speedbowl won’t be opening their gates for their Budweiser Blastoff weekend April 5-7 are swirling strong.
Must be close to racing season starting.
Waterford Speedbowl owner Terry Eames said he has gotten used to the dire rumors of the track not opening for another year as a bell toll that the start of the season was growing closer.
“I’ve had conversations with many racers that have been concerned and once we have the conversations they get it and have faith,” Eames said. “This will be the 18th time I’ve opened the place and I would say all but for a couple there’s been these questions. … But, business continues to be a challenge.”
Eames said the track does indeed owe some competitors prize money still from the closing event of the 2012 season. The track emerged from a long stint in bankruptcy last year.
“We do have some people that need to get paid and if any of them would reach out we would be welcome to talk about their individual case with them,” Eames said. “… Anybody that has concerns, they can reach out by email to [email protected] or [email protected], one of us will get back to them, even if they just email us a phone number to call them. We’ll have those conversations.”
Eames is optimistic that consistent improvement of the track’s racing program and car counts will continue in 2013.
After two years as the track’s racing director, Scott Tapley left the Speedbowl after the conclusion of the 2012 season to take a similar position with the Valenti Modified Racing Series. Eames said he will take over the role of racing director himself this year.
“We’ve put together a good team to run the race department, that I’m going to oversee. I don’t see myself doing that job permanently, but I haven’t put any timetable on when I will replace myself. If that opportunity arises sometime this season we’ll do it, if it doesn’t we won’t.
“I developed what I consider a real good race management philosophy over the course of like 15 years. A lot of the constructive feedback I got with that was from Tom Fox. I was lucky enough to have Tom work for me fulltime for a couple years, including being race director, and he put the philosophy in action better than any other race director I ever had. Then Scott Tapley was trained by him and carried that ball on. Well, to take somebody from the outside and get them to understand what it is we want to accomplish with our program and how we want to do it, it’s very challenging.”
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Doesn't he know who he owes money? Why should they have to reach out to him to discuss individual cases? He should pay everyone the money that they won.
I spoke with them and they were very fair and doing what they can. If we don't support them they will be gone….and they aren't building anymore race tracks in case nobody's noticed.
Paid or not, you'll all be back there. What were they fair about? How about you pay your pit fee when you get paid for running there? It's the same old, same old and ya'll keep goin' back. Fools or just foolish?