March 14, 2024 • 22 mins
Jacob talks with Rich Farmer about the 2024 season, wicker bills, and the educatonial program at Fremont Speedway.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:21):
All right, folks, welcome backto the Uhio Dirt Tracking Podcast. I
believe this is episode number five oftwenty twenty four, episode number one hundred
and eighteen or something like that.In general, tonight we have Rich Farmer
with joining us, the new promoterof the old and the new promoter of
Fremont Speedway. And yeah, it'sjust a whole bunch of stuff going on.
(00:44):
So Rich, we appreciate you takingtime to join us tonight. How
you doing. I'm good man.I appreciate the opportunity anytime that, you
know, we can do anything toget the word out about short track racing,
especially here at home. We enjoyit. So we're grateful for the
opportunity to say. Looks like youhave a nice little background there. Looks
like you're out at the track.You said you were testing the sound system.
(01:06):
Yeah, we're putting all the puttingthe sound system back up and getting
everything ready there, and we gota couple of days of some painting coming
up and hopefully get some billboards hereby the end of the week and we'll
be off in the in good spot. It sounds like you've had a very
busy off season here. Once thingsslowed down last fall, you know,
kind of talk us through everything thatyou've been able to get into your hands
(01:30):
into here this offseason. Well,luckily for us, it's you know,
like you said, we're the oldold new promoters. So my wife and
I, you know, we've putthis put it back together, and luckily
we've been very very well supported bythe racing community, the business community,
and fortunately we've walked back into whatlooks to be our best season yet.
(01:52):
So we're pretty excited to get itstarted. What was kind of like that
process, like getting your hands backon Fremont. I don't know if that's
the best way to put it,but uh, you know, being able
to promote Fremont again, you know, it's honestly something when I left here,
I didn't think I would do again. I kind of thought that those
days were gone, and and Iwas okay with it. I was,
(02:13):
I was very okay with it.And then uh, things went the way
they went, and you know,uh, something something needed to happen,
I feel, and I and theothers obviously felt that way too, and
and it kind of worked out.You know, we consulted, uh consulted
the fair board for the previous yearon a a background kind of way,
and and you know, the opportunitywas like they presented it like, hey,
(02:37):
it was you know, is thissomething you'd want to do? And
kind of felt like I still hadenough left in me to make a positive
impact and make it where you know, we could be proud of it.
And and uh and Fremont's always beenhome, man. I grew up a
block out of the front gate ofthis place, and up until the last
couple of seasons, I only missedmaybe three races in my life since I
(02:58):
was five. So this play justhome to me. That makes sense.
I mean, if you're that closeto me, is we'll do something with
it. Got the passion for it. I don't quite live as close as
I used to, but I cantell you that far away. Uh huh.
So what all do you got goingon at Fremont this year? I
know your schedule's out and you've beenboasting some sponsors, So yeah, what
all you got going on here thisyear? Yeah? I think you know.
(03:21):
We got the natural highlights, right, we got the World of Outlaws
show, we got our gym BoardClassic coming back and bigger, the biggest
gym Board Classic ever. The richestpain person the speedway history. We got
the richest paying weekly events for everydivision in history, the richest paying points
funds in history. You know,we're we're setting the bar very high and
now we just got a little upto all the hype. Sounds like you
(03:44):
have some pretty good marketing partners then, too, that are definitely helping out
too. Yes, we have agreat loyal group of marketing partners. And
you know, fortunately for me,you know, I'm in business and a
lot of different businesses, so wedo business with a lot of other business
folks and and you know, wewe all work well with one another and
and get the mission accomplished and hopefully, uh, you know, at the
(04:08):
end of the day, everybody getswhat they need out of the out of
the operation and they're satisfied. Soyou know, we uh we we're actually
trying to figure out how we're goingto hang all of our billboards up and
currently, so it's a it's agood problem to have and we're very very
fortunate. Can't thank everybody enough forhelping us out that that's definitely a good
problem to have, not have enoughbillboard space. So, uh, what
(04:30):
what are some of your goals herefor twenty twenty four here at Fremont.
You know, I think our ourmain goals is to is to provide a
quality show and uh in a ina quality time frame. Right. We
want to start on time, getthe fans here, get them, get
them entertained, and and put theput the best show we can together in
the most reasonable amount of time.Meanwhile, growing the sport and growing the
(04:53):
fan base, growing the car countbase, whether that's you know, we
we do it locally, regionally howeverthat however that all plays out. But
you know, I think that youknow, with the added prize money with
uh you know, the Added PointsFund, and and Attica working closely with
us this year, we probably gotthe best working relationship with them if we've
maybe ever had. And you know, we're doing stuff together that that raises
(05:15):
the whole Northern Ohio bar. Soit's good. It's good to be in
good in good competition with our withour neighbors sort of speak, you know.
We it's uh, ultimately, Johnand I are very passionate about sprint
car racing and racing in general.So you know, uh, that's uh.
I think I think you're going tosee what Northern Ohio is capable of
(05:38):
We're we're going to set the barfor sure. How how important is it
this year and yours to come nowthat uh there's no All Stars? How
important is it that you know,tracks kind of work together and keep on
supporting the drivers and uh put onshows that fans want to come to.
Well, I think what you're goingto notice more so than anything is the
(05:59):
lack of the All Star brand name, just the name right. I think
we're still going to have our regionalevents that are gonna pay very well.
I know when we get to releasein a few more things that the day
goes on or the the weeks tocome bring out, I should say,
you know, we if you lookat our Memorial weekend, you know we
have our Outlaws show. Plus wehave a the Double Down Throwdown Night,
(06:21):
which is going to be a doublefeature for four tens, double feature for
three zero fives, double feature fortrucks, no heat races. It's a
very unique format that I think isgoing to provide entertainment. It's going to
put extra money into the into thehands of the of the teams. You
know, we got Speed Week,It's it's going to be under the fast
banner. It's not under the uh, you know, the all Star banner.
(06:41):
But you know, Danny Dietrich's alreadycommitted to it, a handful of
other guys have committed to it.The money is going to be there,
the prestige is going to be there. It's actually it's actually the highest paying
speed Week points fund in the history, and it's and it's thanctioned under a
totally different format. So you know, there there was a lot of people
that that you know, work togetherto get it to where it is.
(07:02):
And you know, unfortunately, throughthe process, we had some disagreements with
some close friends, but we wasable to work it out and come together
in the end, and that's what'simportant. And if you look at that
and you and you follow through thenext couple of weeks, you know,
we got we got a lot ofgood events. These guys in Ohio if
they if they work it out,they could race Fremont Attica weekly and they
(07:24):
could still race a lot of thealmost all the what I would consider marquee
events for the most part, theycould race for it's almost three million dollars
prize money. That's never happened before. So I'm a I'm a history guy.
Obviously, I created the Hall ofFame here at Fremont. I am
wishing that the All Stars, thatthat the All Stars could could be here
(07:48):
in some capacity, and I hopethat maybe in the future that that that
name can come back and return.And you know, Fremont for years was
the home of the All Stars,and someday we'd like to be that again.
But in the meantime, I thinkthat the Ohio people as a whole,
I think we've all stepped up ourgame. We've all created the opportunity
that I mean, short of thebrand name, we're gonna put on the
(08:11):
race that everybody's gonna want to see. So as you're looking kind of down
the road, you know, maybefive ten years, if you're still you
know, at Fremont, you know, maybe that's what you want to do
too. You know, what aresome of those long term goals that you
have for racing here in Fremont.Well, you know, I'm not I'm
a guy that lives one day ata time. I don't plan much.
I don't even plan my next Idon't know what I'm doing tomorrow, so
(08:35):
I don't I don't make a lotof long term plans, but you know,
our our intention is to is tomake Fremont Speedway the best that it
absolutely can be. You know,we got a lot of infrastructure things that
we need to work on here.This place is old. The grand stands
are built in the twenties, andyou know, we just got stuff that
we want to do where we're workingon some lighting and different things to just
upgrade the facilities as we go.But ultimately we you know, in five
(08:58):
years from now, ten years fromnow, we want to be the same
place we are today, and that'sgoing to be that We're going to be
the most premier local racing as wecan get. You know, we'll never
compete with with an El Dora.We don't have the seating capacity to compete
with that, nor do we necessarilywant to compete with that. You know,
our history here seventy three years thisyear. So my goal is to
(09:20):
make it as long as I'm herethat whoever the next person that follows me
has an opportunity that we can getto. You know, one hundred and
forty six years right, we wantto double it, and I think we're
on the right path to keep thingsgoing. The fair boards very much on
our side, the teams are verycooperative, and we're very positive, and
(09:41):
our marketing partners are very good.So I think we got a whole lot
to look forward to. We justhave to see where time takes us.
So one other thing that you gotgoing here in the off season was the
Fremont School Motorsport Education. So youhave some cars and you're basically just going
to teach you know, people whoor whoever wants to, whoever signs up,
(10:03):
you know, how to maintenance thesprint car, how to do this
and that. So kind of kindof talk us through that a little bit,
you know what what all is goingon there? Yeah, you know,
I've had a lot of people thatin my promoting days are into a
car owner days or whatever. I'veseen a lot of people come and go
in the sport, right, somepeople that I felt maybe didn't have a
(10:24):
best opportunity, right, Maybe theydidn't have the right people around him,
didn't have the right education around him, didn't have a way to learn to
stay in the sport or how tooptimize what they had, and that kind
of thing. So so me andMichael and Stephen we put this thing together
to hopefully, you know, getmore people to get to where they can
have success, right, and andmore people that have success, the better
(10:45):
their successes, the more likely theyare to stay. So whether they need
a driver coach, you know,we're going to offer those those things with
our on tracked classes. If theyjust need to learn to maintenance it.
Maybe maybe a guy's got a racecar and he's got a couple of his
cousins that don't know anything of arace car, but they want to be
on a race team and they wantto go do this together, but they
need to learn to take care ofthe things so it doesn't fall apart and
break and cause issues. So we'rejust trying to build a whole package around
(11:09):
all of that. Or you getguys that run three zero five cars that
maybe move up to a three sixtyfour to ten and they're not used to
having to keep an eye on thefuel system to make sure they don't burn
the thing down or that kind ofstuff. We have a fuel maintenance class
that goes over how to properly fuelthe race car all the way through.
So I think that you know,our goal with that is to is to
get more people racing and to keepthem racing longer. And you have you
(11:31):
know, guys like Mike Linder andSteve Linder helping you out with this.
So how how important is that havingyou know, two guys that have a
ton of experience here in northwest Ohio, you know, teaching these classes and
giving these people the hands on experience. It's it's like anything you do in
life, the only way as successfulis the people around you. And Michael,
(11:52):
Steven and I we've raced together forover twenty years, so we all
know each other well. We're probablymore like brothers than we are anything else.
And when it comes to it,we we don't doubt one another's abilities.
We get the job done. Andand and those guys, I mean,
if you look at you look atthe record books, I think the
three of us as far as winningraces, as car owners, drivers,
(12:15):
mechanics and stuff, I think we'rein good shape. So and this is
like classes that really anyone can signup for, right Oh, absolutely,
yep. Anybody can sign up.So you don't need like any sprint car,
dirt truck, or late model experienceto sign up. You know,
it could be someone like me whojust you know, wants to learn more
(12:35):
about race cars. Absolutely, yeah, and that's all on the Fremont Speedway
Motorsport Education website. Yep, yep. You can get everything on the website
and go to our the Fremont MotorsportsPark or I'm sorry, Freemont speed Fremont,
oh Speedway dot com and there's thisthere's a tab at the top for
the school and that'll take you tothat information. Or you can follow us
(12:56):
on social media as well. Gotcha. So yeah, that's that's another cool
thing that you know, you've beenable to get your or you know,
occupy some of your free time.I don't know if that you have free
time anymore. I'm fortunate enough that, you know, like I said,
the people thing, I mean,we have a lot of employees across a
(13:16):
lot of different places, and youknow, providing everybody shows up the work,
life's good, right every now andthen we have a couple of hiccups
and we got to take care ofit. But it's uh, I'm a
very busy person. I don't wantto make it sound like I'm not busy,
but I'm also surrounded with I feellike I'm surrounded with the best people
in everything that we do. Andyou know, we're fortunate we're fortunate to
(13:37):
have. We got good people thatwork for us in a lot of different
places and that's what makes it work. So another a topic of conversation this
past week has been the three inchwicker bill. You know, Fremont Attica
came out and said that drivers areable to run a three inch wicker bill
in addition to you know, oneinch, two inch, no wick or
(13:58):
will whatever they want. Really,so, what was kind of the reasoning
behind that. I know you've talkedabout it on Facebook, and I know
some drivers have voiced their concern ormost of the drivers that have voiced the
concern of the drivers that start upfront every night. So you know,
it's easy to start up front andget in clean air and think it works.
(14:18):
You're right, you know. Thethe idea the idea is is if
the you know we're going to testsomething, let's test the full spectrum.
Let's not just test the one endof the spectrum. Right the outlaws of
high limits, they're testing the oneinch end of the spectrum. Nobody's nobody's
talked about a three inch. Nobody'seven allowed a three inch since we took
the dish wings off the cars.Right, So in theory. We had
(14:39):
a two inch diition a three inchwicker so we had five inches of wing.
So maybe we went too far theother way. And so, in
my opinion, you're going to runa one inch wicker bill, you're probably
going to stand the wing up higher. When you stand the wing up higher,
that whole five by five wing surfacein the air. You're putting a
pretty big hole in the air versusa wicker bill, which only turns the
(15:00):
back edge of the wing up.You know, I'm a I'm not a
scientist, right, I'm not.I'm just a high school dropout that works
on race cars and has fun.But the idea is is I believe we
got to test both ends of thespectrum. The days when we ran three
inch wicker bills, a guy couldroll right through the middle. He didn't
have to be married to the curb, didn't have to be married to the
bottom. They could roll the center. They could pass cars. Every since
(15:24):
this dirty air thing has became realrelevant, these guys are able to go
in there. They do the slighterbomb deal where they just blow across the
front. They take the air offthe car behind them, They get tight,
go off the end. They don'treally get a chance to even slide
back at the other end because theylost so much momentum. So we're hoping
that this works, and hey,if it doesn't work, a wicker bill,
(15:46):
if you make it yourselves, aboutfour bucks if you buy it,
it shouldn't be any more than fifteenor so. And you know, we
spend a lot more money on otherthings to experiment with than we do a
wicker bill, So you know,we're prepared that if it doesn't work,
we'll retract it. I mean,I have no shame in saying, hey,
we tried something, it didn't work. The people that never try anything
(16:07):
and want a different result. Tome, that's the definition of insanity is
when you do the same thing repetitivelyand expect a different result. So we're
just going to try something that webelieve will work. We have data that
says cars passed each other with threeinch wicker bills and dish wings. We
got plenty of data that says thatthe starting that the finishing position wasn't from
(16:29):
two point seven average as it isnationwide today. So I believe that it's
worth trying, not afraid to takea risk. I like it, you
know, never have been. Sothis is something I don't know. This
made me think about you when Ithink it was Port Royal and like Williams
Drow, some of those Pennsylvania trackscame out and said that a if a
(16:56):
driver was caught like doping their tiresor cheating somehow with their tires, that
they'd be suspended for two weeks fromall those tracks. So I guess part
one of that question would be doyou think something like that would work in
Ohio where if like a driver wascaught and cheating and the tracks should come
together and be like, hey,like no racing for two weeks. And
then part two of the question wouldbe, well, okay, Part two
(17:22):
of the question would be, youknow, would you know a promoter in
Ohio maybe allow a driver that gotsuspended in Pennsylvania to come race in Ohio
for those two weeks. You know, I don't know what they I would
think. I know the tracks acrossthe northern part of Ohio we work very
very well together Fremont Atka Sharon,we're very very close and very tight.
(17:44):
I believe that we would all followsuit. I really think that that Wayne
County and Atomic would likely follow suitif it became if we could identify it
as a problem, right, becausenone of us, at the end of
the day, none of us wantanother car to have a competitive advantage.
Right. We do our best tolive within the rules that we have to
work with, and and we're allafter the same goal. Right. And
(18:06):
you know, if somebody got suspendedat Atomic, I wouldn't want them to
come here if it was a competitiverule violation. Now you know, if
somebody got hot headed and did something, well, okay, that that's passion
of the moment and probably excuseable.But if it's a if it's a rule
violation, I wouldn't want them herebecause I wouldn't want that stigma that,
oh it's okay to cheat at Frema, Right, So I wouldn't want that.
(18:29):
As far as testing for tied dope, I tested for tire dope seven
eight years ago. Groove tires,take an example. Put them in an
evidence bag, send them to thelab down North Carolina. You know we've
done it before. We're gonna doit again. We're not gonna We're not
gonna tolerate tired doping. So we'llsee what happens. I have talked to
Colton out there at BAPS and andI've talked to the guys at Lincoln and
(18:52):
so forth to kind of see howthey did come across that. And you
know, fortunately for me, II've been around long enough. I know
all these guys and we have openconversations. So we'll see how it goes.
I see Clint has joined us.I see. I don't know if
his mike is on or if hecan hear us. Yeah, yeah,
sorry, I snuck in there.I apologize for being late. It's like
(19:14):
remember in elementary school when the viceprincipal would sneak in and stand in the
back of the room. So Rich, honestly, Clint, I think for
about ready to wrap up. ButRich, is there anything else that you
want to add, you know,onto anything that you said here tonight?
Oh, not that I can thinkof. I just hope everybody gets the
opportunity to come out to the speedwaythis summer and enjoy some racing. To
(19:37):
say, Clint got anything for us. I don't know what I missed,
but I will I will ask oneof my favorite questions, Get anything special
playing for the campground this year thatI can look forward to and that you're
ready to talk about I mean,we got we got some We got a
couple of nights of some free camping. That's always something to look forward to,
(19:57):
I suppose. And then you know, a gym Ford Classic time.
We'll have some parties, and Ithink we're probably gonna shape something up for
Memorial Weekend for the Saturday night ofMemorial Weekend. We haven't quite got all
those details yet, we you know, around here, we run a checklist,
right, We run a checklist onwhat we need to have to race,
and then we start going with whatwe need to have for fringies and
(20:19):
other stuff. And we're we're actuallygetting into the entertainment side of it now
now that we got all the racestuff done and that kind of thing.
So I don't you know, normallywhen you promote races, you start working
on stuff as soon as you finishyour first race. You're working on the
next year. And we didn't getstarted till October. So to be in
the position we're in at this rateis pretty much monumental as it is,
(20:44):
so well, I promise you'll havefun in the campground, so always do.
It's so far it's my favorite inOhio. So I can't wait to
get back out there. Awesome.I'll see. I'm in maybe preliminary talks
with DJ Fuss about some campground activitiesduring jim Ford weekend. That'd be uh.
(21:04):
I think that'd be pretty fun.Maybe some some content related stuff.
But that's that's obviously a little waysaway, about six months away, so
we'll just kind of have to see. So Rich, as long as there's
nothing else that you have for us, you know, we appreciate your time
joining us, Clint, you gotanything, No, I'm good again.
(21:26):
Sorry, sorry to be late,and I can't wait to get to get
to the track this year. Allright. I appreciate you guys having me
on the show, and you knowyou can go to freemont Oahspeedway dot com.
We do have tickets available online nowyou'll be able to purchase tickets for
our April sixth race. They're availableand we are on my race pass this
year, so that'll be a littlebit of a change and look forward to
(21:49):
getting started. Appreciate you coming onthe show this week, and sorry I
missed it. At least I camehere to say get out, get dirty
and support your local trap X righton man. We appreciate it as well.
Thank you, Thanks Chris good H.
All right, folks, welcome backto the Uhio Dirt Tracking Podcast. I
believe this is episode number five oftwenty twenty four, episode number one hundred
and eighteen or something like that.In general, tonight we have Rich Farmer
with joining us, the new promoterof the old and the new promoter of
Fremont Speedway. And yeah, it'sjust a whole bunch of stuff going on.
(00:44):
So Rich, we appreciate you takingtime to join us tonight. How
you doing. I'm good man.I appreciate the opportunity anytime that, you
know, we can do anything toget the word out about short track racing,
especially here at home. We enjoyit. So we're grateful for the
opportunity to say. Looks like youhave a nice little background there. Looks
like you're out at the track.You said you were testing the sound system.
(01:06):
Yeah, we're putting all the puttingthe sound system back up and getting
everything ready there, and we gota couple of days of some painting coming
up and hopefully get some billboards hereby the end of the week and we'll
be off in the in good spot. It sounds like you've had a very
busy off season here. Once thingsslowed down last fall, you know,
kind of talk us through everything thatyou've been able to get into your hands
(01:30):
into here this offseason. Well,luckily for us, it's you know,
like you said, we're the oldold new promoters. So my wife and
I, you know, we've putthis put it back together, and luckily
we've been very very well supported bythe racing community, the business community,
and fortunately we've walked back into whatlooks to be our best season yet.
(01:52):
So we're pretty excited to get itstarted. What was kind of like that
process, like getting your hands backon Fremont. I don't know if that's
the best way to put it,but uh, you know, being able
to promote Fremont again, you know, it's honestly something when I left here,
I didn't think I would do again. I kind of thought that those
days were gone, and and Iwas okay with it. I was,
(02:13):
I was very okay with it.And then uh, things went the way
they went, and you know,uh, something something needed to happen,
I feel, and I and theothers obviously felt that way too, and
and it kind of worked out.You know, we consulted, uh consulted
the fair board for the previous yearon a a background kind of way,
and and you know, the opportunitywas like they presented it like, hey,
(02:37):
it was you know, is thissomething you'd want to do? And
kind of felt like I still hadenough left in me to make a positive
impact and make it where you know, we could be proud of it.
And and uh and Fremont's always beenhome, man. I grew up a
block out of the front gate ofthis place, and up until the last
couple of seasons, I only missedmaybe three races in my life since I
(02:58):
was five. So this play justhome to me. That makes sense.
I mean, if you're that closeto me, is we'll do something with
it. Got the passion for it. I don't quite live as close as
I used to, but I cantell you that far away. Uh huh.
So what all do you got goingon at Fremont this year? I
know your schedule's out and you've beenboasting some sponsors, So yeah, what
all you got going on here thisyear? Yeah? I think you know.
(03:21):
We got the natural highlights, right, we got the World of Outlaws
show, we got our gym BoardClassic coming back and bigger, the biggest
gym Board Classic ever. The richestpain person the speedway history. We got
the richest paying weekly events for everydivision in history, the richest paying points
funds in history. You know,we're we're setting the bar very high and
now we just got a little upto all the hype. Sounds like you
(03:44):
have some pretty good marketing partners then, too, that are definitely helping out
too. Yes, we have agreat loyal group of marketing partners. And
you know, fortunately for me,you know, I'm in business and a
lot of different businesses, so wedo business with a lot of other business
folks and and you know, wewe all work well with one another and
and get the mission accomplished and hopefully, uh, you know, at the
(04:08):
end of the day, everybody getswhat they need out of the out of
the operation and they're satisfied. Soyou know, we uh we we're actually
trying to figure out how we're goingto hang all of our billboards up and
currently, so it's a it's agood problem to have and we're very very
fortunate. Can't thank everybody enough forhelping us out that that's definitely a good
problem to have, not have enoughbillboard space. So, uh, what
(04:30):
what are some of your goals herefor twenty twenty four here at Fremont.
You know, I think our ourmain goals is to is to provide a
quality show and uh in a ina quality time frame. Right. We
want to start on time, getthe fans here, get them, get
them entertained, and and put theput the best show we can together in
the most reasonable amount of time.Meanwhile, growing the sport and growing the
(04:53):
fan base, growing the car countbase, whether that's you know, we
we do it locally, regionally howeverthat however that all plays out. But
you know, I think that youknow, with the added prize money with
uh you know, the Added PointsFund, and and Attica working closely with
us this year, we probably gotthe best working relationship with them if we've
maybe ever had. And you know, we're doing stuff together that that raises
(05:15):
the whole Northern Ohio bar. Soit's good. It's good to be in
good in good competition with our withour neighbors sort of speak, you know.
We it's uh, ultimately, Johnand I are very passionate about sprint
car racing and racing in general.So you know, uh, that's uh.
I think I think you're going tosee what Northern Ohio is capable of
(05:38):
We're we're going to set the barfor sure. How how important is it
this year and yours to come nowthat uh there's no All Stars? How
important is it that you know,tracks kind of work together and keep on
supporting the drivers and uh put onshows that fans want to come to.
Well, I think what you're goingto notice more so than anything is the
(05:59):
lack of the All Star brand name, just the name right. I think
we're still going to have our regionalevents that are gonna pay very well.
I know when we get to releasein a few more things that the day
goes on or the the weeks tocome bring out, I should say,
you know, we if you lookat our Memorial weekend, you know we
have our Outlaws show. Plus wehave a the Double Down Throwdown Night,
(06:21):
which is going to be a doublefeature for four tens, double feature for
three zero fives, double feature fortrucks, no heat races. It's a
very unique format that I think isgoing to provide entertainment. It's going to
put extra money into the into thehands of the of the teams. You
know, we got Speed Week,It's it's going to be under the fast
banner. It's not under the uh, you know, the all Star banner.
(06:41):
But you know, Danny Dietrich's alreadycommitted to it, a handful of
other guys have committed to it.The money is going to be there,
the prestige is going to be there. It's actually it's actually the highest paying
speed Week points fund in the history, and it's and it's thanctioned under a
totally different format. So you know, there there was a lot of people
that that you know, work togetherto get it to where it is.
(07:02):
And you know, unfortunately, throughthe process, we had some disagreements with
some close friends, but we wasable to work it out and come together
in the end, and that's what'simportant. And if you look at that
and you and you follow through thenext couple of weeks, you know,
we got we got a lot ofgood events. These guys in Ohio if
they if they work it out,they could race Fremont Attica weekly and they
(07:24):
could still race a lot of thealmost all the what I would consider marquee
events for the most part, theycould race for it's almost three million dollars
prize money. That's never happened before. So I'm a I'm a history guy.
Obviously, I created the Hall ofFame here at Fremont. I am
wishing that the All Stars, thatthat the All Stars could could be here
(07:48):
in some capacity, and I hopethat maybe in the future that that that
name can come back and return.And you know, Fremont for years was
the home of the All Stars,and someday we'd like to be that again.
But in the meantime, I thinkthat the Ohio people as a whole,
I think we've all stepped up ourgame. We've all created the opportunity
that I mean, short of thebrand name, we're gonna put on the
(08:11):
race that everybody's gonna want to see. So as you're looking kind of down
the road, you know, maybefive ten years, if you're still you
know, at Fremont, you know, maybe that's what you want to do
too. You know, what aresome of those long term goals that you
have for racing here in Fremont.Well, you know, I'm not I'm
a guy that lives one day ata time. I don't plan much.
I don't even plan my next Idon't know what I'm doing tomorrow, so
(08:35):
I don't I don't make a lotof long term plans, but you know,
our our intention is to is tomake Fremont Speedway the best that it
absolutely can be. You know,we got a lot of infrastructure things that
we need to work on here.This place is old. The grand stands
are built in the twenties, andyou know, we just got stuff that
we want to do where we're workingon some lighting and different things to just
upgrade the facilities as we go.But ultimately we you know, in five
(08:58):
years from now, ten years fromnow, we want to be the same
place we are today, and that'sgoing to be that We're going to be
the most premier local racing as wecan get. You know, we'll never
compete with with an El Dora.We don't have the seating capacity to compete
with that, nor do we necessarilywant to compete with that. You know,
our history here seventy three years thisyear. So my goal is to
(09:20):
make it as long as I'm herethat whoever the next person that follows me
has an opportunity that we can getto. You know, one hundred and
forty six years right, we wantto double it, and I think we're
on the right path to keep thingsgoing. The fair boards very much on
our side, the teams are verycooperative, and we're very positive, and
(09:41):
our marketing partners are very good.So I think we got a whole lot
to look forward to. We justhave to see where time takes us.
So one other thing that you gotgoing here in the off season was the
Fremont School Motorsport Education. So youhave some cars and you're basically just going
to teach you know, people whoor whoever wants to, whoever signs up,
(10:03):
you know, how to maintenance thesprint car, how to do this
and that. So kind of kindof talk us through that a little bit,
you know what what all is goingon there? Yeah, you know,
I've had a lot of people thatin my promoting days are into a
car owner days or whatever. I'veseen a lot of people come and go
in the sport, right, somepeople that I felt maybe didn't have a
(10:24):
best opportunity, right, Maybe theydidn't have the right people around him,
didn't have the right education around him, didn't have a way to learn to
stay in the sport or how tooptimize what they had, and that kind
of thing. So so me andMichael and Stephen we put this thing together
to hopefully, you know, getmore people to get to where they can
have success, right, and andmore people that have success, the better
(10:45):
their successes, the more likely theyare to stay. So whether they need
a driver coach, you know,we're going to offer those those things with
our on tracked classes. If theyjust need to learn to maintenance it.
Maybe maybe a guy's got a racecar and he's got a couple of his
cousins that don't know anything of arace car, but they want to be
on a race team and they wantto go do this together, but they
need to learn to take care ofthe things so it doesn't fall apart and
break and cause issues. So we'rejust trying to build a whole package around
(11:09):
all of that. Or you getguys that run three zero five cars that
maybe move up to a three sixtyfour to ten and they're not used to
having to keep an eye on thefuel system to make sure they don't burn
the thing down or that kind ofstuff. We have a fuel maintenance class
that goes over how to properly fuelthe race car all the way through.
So I think that you know,our goal with that is to is to
get more people racing and to keepthem racing longer. And you have you
(11:31):
know, guys like Mike Linder andSteve Linder helping you out with this.
So how how important is that havingyou know, two guys that have a
ton of experience here in northwest Ohio, you know, teaching these classes and
giving these people the hands on experience. It's it's like anything you do in
life, the only way as successfulis the people around you. And Michael,
(11:52):
Steven and I we've raced together forover twenty years, so we all
know each other well. We're probablymore like brothers than we are anything else.
And when it comes to it,we we don't doubt one another's abilities.
We get the job done. Andand and those guys, I mean,
if you look at you look atthe record books, I think the
three of us as far as winningraces, as car owners, drivers,
(12:15):
mechanics and stuff, I think we'rein good shape. So and this is
like classes that really anyone can signup for, right Oh, absolutely,
yep. Anybody can sign up.So you don't need like any sprint car,
dirt truck, or late model experienceto sign up. You know,
it could be someone like me whojust you know, wants to learn more
(12:35):
about race cars. Absolutely, yeah, and that's all on the Fremont Speedway
Motorsport Education website. Yep, yep. You can get everything on the website
and go to our the Fremont MotorsportsPark or I'm sorry, Freemont speed Fremont,
oh Speedway dot com and there's thisthere's a tab at the top for
the school and that'll take you tothat information. Or you can follow us
(12:56):
on social media as well. Gotcha. So yeah, that's that's another cool
thing that you know, you've beenable to get your or you know,
occupy some of your free time.I don't know if that you have free
time anymore. I'm fortunate enough that, you know, like I said,
the people thing, I mean,we have a lot of employees across a
(13:16):
lot of different places, and youknow, providing everybody shows up the work,
life's good, right every now andthen we have a couple of hiccups
and we got to take care ofit. But it's uh, I'm a
very busy person. I don't wantto make it sound like I'm not busy,
but I'm also surrounded with I feellike I'm surrounded with the best people
in everything that we do. Andyou know, we're fortunate we're fortunate to
(13:37):
have. We got good people thatwork for us in a lot of different
places and that's what makes it work. So another a topic of conversation this
past week has been the three inchwicker bill. You know, Fremont Attica
came out and said that drivers areable to run a three inch wicker bill
in addition to you know, oneinch, two inch, no wick or
(13:58):
will whatever they want. Really,so, what was kind of the reasoning
behind that. I know you've talkedabout it on Facebook, and I know
some drivers have voiced their concern ormost of the drivers that have voiced the
concern of the drivers that start upfront every night. So you know,
it's easy to start up front andget in clean air and think it works.
(14:18):
You're right, you know. Thethe idea the idea is is if
the you know we're going to testsomething, let's test the full spectrum.
Let's not just test the one endof the spectrum. Right the outlaws of
high limits, they're testing the oneinch end of the spectrum. Nobody's nobody's
talked about a three inch. Nobody'seven allowed a three inch since we took
the dish wings off the cars.Right, So in theory. We had
(14:39):
a two inch diition a three inchwicker so we had five inches of wing.
So maybe we went too far theother way. And so, in
my opinion, you're going to runa one inch wicker bill, you're probably
going to stand the wing up higher. When you stand the wing up higher,
that whole five by five wing surfacein the air. You're putting a
pretty big hole in the air versusa wicker bill, which only turns the
(15:00):
back edge of the wing up.You know, I'm a I'm not a
scientist, right, I'm not.I'm just a high school dropout that works
on race cars and has fun.But the idea is is I believe we
got to test both ends of thespectrum. The days when we ran three
inch wicker bills, a guy couldroll right through the middle. He didn't
have to be married to the curb, didn't have to be married to the
bottom. They could roll the center. They could pass cars. Every since
(15:24):
this dirty air thing has became realrelevant, these guys are able to go
in there. They do the slighterbomb deal where they just blow across the
front. They take the air offthe car behind them, They get tight,
go off the end. They don'treally get a chance to even slide
back at the other end because theylost so much momentum. So we're hoping
that this works, and hey,if it doesn't work, a wicker bill,
(15:46):
if you make it yourselves, aboutfour bucks if you buy it,
it shouldn't be any more than fifteenor so. And you know, we
spend a lot more money on otherthings to experiment with than we do a
wicker bill, So you know,we're prepared that if it doesn't work,
we'll retract it. I mean,I have no shame in saying, hey,
we tried something, it didn't work. The people that never try anything
(16:07):
and want a different result. Tome, that's the definition of insanity is
when you do the same thing repetitivelyand expect a different result. So we're
just going to try something that webelieve will work. We have data that
says cars passed each other with threeinch wicker bills and dish wings. We
got plenty of data that says thatthe starting that the finishing position wasn't from
(16:29):
two point seven average as it isnationwide today. So I believe that it's
worth trying, not afraid to takea risk. I like it, you
know, never have been. Sothis is something I don't know. This
made me think about you when Ithink it was Port Royal and like Williams
Drow, some of those Pennsylvania trackscame out and said that a if a
(16:56):
driver was caught like doping their tiresor cheating somehow with their tires, that
they'd be suspended for two weeks fromall those tracks. So I guess part
one of that question would be doyou think something like that would work in
Ohio where if like a driver wascaught and cheating and the tracks should come
together and be like, hey,like no racing for two weeks. And
then part two of the question wouldbe, well, okay, Part two
(17:22):
of the question would be, youknow, would you know a promoter in
Ohio maybe allow a driver that gotsuspended in Pennsylvania to come race in Ohio
for those two weeks. You know, I don't know what they I would
think. I know the tracks acrossthe northern part of Ohio we work very
very well together Fremont Atka Sharon,we're very very close and very tight.
(17:44):
I believe that we would all followsuit. I really think that that Wayne
County and Atomic would likely follow suitif it became if we could identify it
as a problem, right, becausenone of us, at the end of
the day, none of us wantanother car to have a competitive advantage.
Right. We do our best tolive within the rules that we have to
work with, and and we're allafter the same goal. Right. And
(18:06):
you know, if somebody got suspendedat Atomic, I wouldn't want them to
come here if it was a competitiverule violation. Now you know, if
somebody got hot headed and did something, well, okay, that that's passion
of the moment and probably excuseable.But if it's a if it's a rule
violation, I wouldn't want them herebecause I wouldn't want that stigma that,
oh it's okay to cheat at Frema, Right, So I wouldn't want that.
(18:29):
As far as testing for tied dope, I tested for tire dope seven
eight years ago. Groove tires,take an example. Put them in an
evidence bag, send them to thelab down North Carolina. You know we've
done it before. We're gonna doit again. We're not gonna We're not
gonna tolerate tired doping. So we'llsee what happens. I have talked to
Colton out there at BAPS and andI've talked to the guys at Lincoln and
(18:52):
so forth to kind of see howthey did come across that. And you
know, fortunately for me, II've been around long enough. I know
all these guys and we have openconversations. So we'll see how it goes.
I see Clint has joined us.I see. I don't know if
his mike is on or if hecan hear us. Yeah, yeah,
sorry, I snuck in there.I apologize for being late. It's like
(19:14):
remember in elementary school when the viceprincipal would sneak in and stand in the
back of the room. So Rich, honestly, Clint, I think for
about ready to wrap up. ButRich, is there anything else that you
want to add, you know,onto anything that you said here tonight?
Oh, not that I can thinkof. I just hope everybody gets the
opportunity to come out to the speedwaythis summer and enjoy some racing. To
(19:37):
say, Clint got anything for us. I don't know what I missed,
but I will I will ask oneof my favorite questions, Get anything special
playing for the campground this year thatI can look forward to and that you're
ready to talk about I mean,we got we got some We got a
couple of nights of some free camping. That's always something to look forward to,
(19:57):
I suppose. And then you know, a gym Ford Classic time.
We'll have some parties, and Ithink we're probably gonna shape something up for
Memorial Weekend for the Saturday night ofMemorial Weekend. We haven't quite got all
those details yet, we you know, around here, we run a checklist,
right, We run a checklist onwhat we need to have to race,
and then we start going with whatwe need to have for fringies and
(20:19):
other stuff. And we're we're actuallygetting into the entertainment side of it now
now that we got all the racestuff done and that kind of thing.
So I don't you know, normallywhen you promote races, you start working
on stuff as soon as you finishyour first race. You're working on the
next year. And we didn't getstarted till October. So to be in
the position we're in at this rateis pretty much monumental as it is,
(20:44):
so well, I promise you'll havefun in the campground, so always do.
It's so far it's my favorite inOhio. So I can't wait to
get back out there. Awesome.I'll see. I'm in maybe preliminary talks
with DJ Fuss about some campground activitiesduring jim Ford weekend. That'd be uh.
(21:04):
I think that'd be pretty fun.Maybe some some content related stuff.
But that's that's obviously a little waysaway, about six months away, so
we'll just kind of have to see. So Rich, as long as there's
nothing else that you have for us, you know, we appreciate your time
joining us, Clint, you gotanything, No, I'm good again.
(21:26):
Sorry, sorry to be late,and I can't wait to get to get
to the track this year. Allright. I appreciate you guys having me
on the show, and you knowyou can go to freemont Oahspeedway dot com.
We do have tickets available online nowyou'll be able to purchase tickets for
our April sixth race. They're availableand we are on my race pass this
year, so that'll be a littlebit of a change and look forward to
(21:49):
getting started. Appreciate you coming onthe show this week, and sorry I
missed it. At least I camehere to say get out, get dirty
and support your local trap X righton man. We appreciate it as well.
Thank you, Thanks Chris good H.
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