From the home of Studebaker,it seems like another bad dream.South
Bends own 1/4 mile roundy round track,the place where David Stremmie
got his start,appears to be headed for a very unglorious ending.
Earlier this summer,the owner/promoter  decided to suspend the Friday
night racing program due to a continuing low car and fan
turnout,deciding to just run Demolition Derbys since that is what has
been making him money..The same fate has now befallen the Demolition
Derbys ,as evidenced by this past weekends abysmal car turnout. Only
40 cars total!!! Usually there are enough cars to have 3 heats of
20-25 cars and 1 feature containing the top 6 or so cars left
running,besides train racing and a roll over contest.Now he has said
there arent enough entrys for the October demo,so its likely
cancelled. He could'nt even make the advertised payout for this last
Demo.
So what the hell happened?? Disrespect and tightassedness.The racers
are tired of being abused and unappreciated. Faced with the owners "my
way or the highway" attitude,and the "get the Hell off my
racetrack,you are banned for life" edicts if they were foolish enough
to disagree with whatever arbitrary decision was at hand,they chose
the highway,and the fans followed!! You cant piss off the racers and
fans and expect them to stay. Some cheapskate examples are as follows:
The decision to try and force late model classes to run 1 type of
tire,the Hoosier Commanche,of which the only distributor was the owner
hisself.The "paving" of the raceing surface,which consisted of
grinding some bumps down,patching a few holes,and then spraying on
asphalt sealer,which was a real purdy black,and slick as deer guts on
a door knob. And year after year,the facility upgrades consisted of
slapping on some white latex paint,and some new banners on the
fencing.The only real repairs were emergency in nature.
Another area track, M140 in Jones Michigan, saw what was
happening,listened to the racers,and created another Friday night race
venue guys are willing to travel that far to (at todays gas prices) so
as to enjoy a better racing track,nicer,cleaner facilities,and better
payouts.A few weeks ago,the 50/50 raffel winner @ Jones took home
$2100 ..CASH!!! THAT will give you some idea of the fan turnout. They
stuck the fork in the roast that was the So Bend Speedway. But it is
said they are still worried someone will buy the So Bend track and
turn it around.They are afraid to loose thier car/fan count.They want
South Bend to close!! The So Bend track was supposed to have been sold
twice before, but it seems some unusual 11th hour demands by the owner/
promoter have only served to shoot himself in his other foot. Word is
$752,000 cash will buy the place lock .stock and barrel,but if you
finance thru Mr owner/promoter,it will be $125 million.
I suppose it is false hope someone will step up and save the
place.After all don't we need ANOTHER freaking subdivision???