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| In
2007 the Southern Ontario Sprints will visit the South
Buxton three times. Over the past few seasons the
return to South Buxton has been a great success story
for the SOS. One of the men behind the success at the
'Devil's D' is track promoter Jeff Gotelaer. SOS
Online's Peter Turford sat down for a one-on-one with
Jeff to discuss the operation of a race track and the
rumoured sale of the South Buxton Raceway.
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| First off - is it For Sale or not? |
| Yes, the track is listed but it will be business as usual for 2007 and beyond. |
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| What is your pre-South Buxton history in the sport? |
| I have been around racing since I was born when my dad was racing at the former Ridge Raceway and South Buxton Raceway. I started working at the Ridge parking cars at the age of 16 and worked various jobs around the track and by the age of 19 I was the chief starter. In future years I worked for CASCAR and the Hooters Pro Cup Series. I performed various tasks with both of these series from Pit Road Official to Sales. |
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| What has your proudest "South Buxton moment" been so far? |
| For me it was this past year for our ESS date. The week leading up to our race date we received 4 days of rain leaving us with a mess on Friday. When the skies cleared on Friday afternoon we started to work on the track. It was so bad that late in the afternoon we had our 4-wheel drive tractor stuck in turn # 3. At that point I thought there was no way that we could pull this show off. With a crew of 4 people and nearly 34 hours later we started our program on time the following night. |
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| In 2006 you put in a new frontstretch wall - I heard various numbers
on it's cost - For the sake of those thinking about getting into the
racetrack business - Do you care to share how much that "simple" wall
and catch fencing cost? |
| When people ask this question I ask that person how much they think it costs. The reply I receive is usually lower then the actual cost. |
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| Last
year the South Buxton Raceway made a major upgrade by
replacing a large section of the front stretch wall. |
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| What could the SOS learn from the other Sprint
Car groups that have run at your track? |
| I like having a race director that is totally independent of any team or car. I had that type of a person this past year and I hope that it will continue for 2007. |
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| What could sprint car racing in general do to help itself? |
| I think the growth rate shows that sprint car racing is on the right path. |
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A lot of people say Saturday night racing is in trouble - For a while
the blame was placed on NASCAR - but now there seems to be other issues
being raised, late starts, long shows, too many divisions, too
expensive, not marketed well enough - what is your "Read" and how do you
respond. |
| Race tracks need to cater to the race fans. At South Buxton we were always ready to go at our 7 pm posted start time. Tracks need to provide the general public entertainment the entire time. Running late is never a good thing and we worked very hard to end our shows by 11. Many nights during the 06 season we were done before that time and we will address the problems in 07 for the reasons why we’re not done by 11. |
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| What do the "armchair quarterback" speedway owners not realize about
owning a speedway? |
| That’s easy… the amount of time the track consumes in one week. During the summer I have only Sunday
afternoon to myself. Some people think we just show up on Saturday and then lock the gates when we leave that night. The other thing is the expense of operating a race facility. Owners face a huge weekly risk trying to pay the bills. |
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| If a race rains out - in round numbers - What is the loss to the
speedway in terms of advertising spent, food not sold that is thrown
away, staff, tow trucks, ambulances payment etc. |
| It’s hard to calculate the loss with a simple answer. The reason I say that is because it all depends on what show gets rained out and when we actually call off the event. |
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| If you were doing it again - what would you do different? |
| Not answer these 10 questions!
:) |
