By Jeff Boerger
The year 2001 was eventful for NASCAR fans across the country. The sport lost Dale Earnhardt, but gained two tracks in the Midwest -- Kansas Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway. But this story actually begins a few years earlier.
The year 2001 was eventful for NASCAR fans across the country. The sport lost Dale Earnhardt, but gained two tracks in the Midwest -- Kansas Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway. But this story actually begins a few years earlier.
In 1997, International Speedway Corporation (ISC) was searching for a Midwest site for a race track and I was working with the Kansas City Area Development Council to help recruit ISC to Kansas City. As Lesa France Kennedy and Grant Lynch (vice president of ISC Strategic Projects) were searching for sites, Grant, who's an outdoorsman, and I started talking about pheasant hunting, one thing led to another and I started working at Kansas Speedway in 1998.
I let Grant and Lesa know that I didn't know the ins and outs of NASCAR and if they were looking for a NASCAR guy, I wasn't him. Over the past several years, I've become a fan of the sport as a whole because of how it brings people together and the impact it has on people's lives.
When this project started, there were a lot of skeptics saying we couldn't make this work and that NASCAR wouldn't be successful here. With Kansas Speedway celebrating its 10th birthday in 2010, I'd have to say we proved those skeptics wrong.
There's something exciting about seeing a project through from its beginning -- the recruitment, land acquisition, construction, operations -- to where it is today, a vibrant part of the Kansas City community, and it has had a huge part in helping the development of Kansas City, Kansas.
I was fortunate enough to be a part of the construction phase of the track and to actually see the rolling fields in western Wyandotte County transformed into a venue that becomes the fourth largest city in Kansas during a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.
It was difficult for people in the area to imagine the size of the race track when I first gave tours of the facility during the initial building phase. I had to compare the size of our facility to two other Kansas City sports arenas -- Arrowhead Stadium (Kansas City Chiefs) and Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City Royals). You could see the amazement on their faces when I told them both stadiums would fit inside our infield.
There's also a misconception that Kansas is flat -- trust me, it's not. We had to move 11 million cubic yards of dirt to start building.
Race cars were not the first equipment to race at Kansas Speedway. During the excavating process, some of the operating crews decided to race some of the scrapers around the tri-oval.
One of my favorite memories happened the day the late Bill France, Jr. visited in the early stages of building with one of his friends (John Cooper) and Grant. It had rained heavily the night before they arrived and I was concerned about driving them around the facility and getting stuck in the mud -- we didn't have any jet dryers to help out with the drying process!
As we headed toward the infield, Bill told me to stop the "blank'n" truck, and took over driving duties from me. I expressed my concern to Bill that because of the mud he might get stuck. He told me not to worry, and proceeded to push the accelerator to the floor.
For the next 10 minutes, we basically four-wheeled throughout the infield and along the backstretch in my Tahoe. Mud was flying everywhere and Bill was like a little kid, enjoying every minute of it. When he finally handed me back the keys, he said, "That's how you drive in the mud."
It's memories like this that I'll never forget.
I've made a lot of memories as the president of Kansas Speedway and every time we host a race, I see all the families and friends that are here, and it's a great feeling to know that everything we've put into making Kansas Speedway the best guest experience in motorsports is helping these fans create their own lasting memories.
I let Grant and Lesa know that I didn't know the ins and outs of NASCAR and if they were looking for a NASCAR guy, I wasn't him. Over the past several years, I've become a fan of the sport as a whole because of how it brings people together and the impact it has on people's lives.
When this project started, there were a lot of skeptics saying we couldn't make this work and that NASCAR wouldn't be successful here. With Kansas Speedway celebrating its 10th birthday in 2010, I'd have to say we proved those skeptics wrong.
There's something exciting about seeing a project through from its beginning -- the recruitment, land acquisition, construction, operations -- to where it is today, a vibrant part of the Kansas City community, and it has had a huge part in helping the development of Kansas City, Kansas.
I was fortunate enough to be a part of the construction phase of the track and to actually see the rolling fields in western Wyandotte County transformed into a venue that becomes the fourth largest city in Kansas during a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.
It was difficult for people in the area to imagine the size of the race track when I first gave tours of the facility during the initial building phase. I had to compare the size of our facility to two other Kansas City sports arenas -- Arrowhead Stadium (Kansas City Chiefs) and Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City Royals). You could see the amazement on their faces when I told them both stadiums would fit inside our infield.
There's also a misconception that Kansas is flat -- trust me, it's not. We had to move 11 million cubic yards of dirt to start building.
Race cars were not the first equipment to race at Kansas Speedway. During the excavating process, some of the operating crews decided to race some of the scrapers around the tri-oval.
One of my favorite memories happened the day the late Bill France, Jr. visited in the early stages of building with one of his friends (John Cooper) and Grant. It had rained heavily the night before they arrived and I was concerned about driving them around the facility and getting stuck in the mud -- we didn't have any jet dryers to help out with the drying process!
As we headed toward the infield, Bill told me to stop the "blank'n" truck, and took over driving duties from me. I expressed my concern to Bill that because of the mud he might get stuck. He told me not to worry, and proceeded to push the accelerator to the floor.
For the next 10 minutes, we basically four-wheeled throughout the infield and along the backstretch in my Tahoe. Mud was flying everywhere and Bill was like a little kid, enjoying every minute of it. When he finally handed me back the keys, he said, "That's how you drive in the mud."
It's memories like this that I'll never forget.
I've made a lot of memories as the president of Kansas Speedway and every time we host a race, I see all the families and friends that are here, and it's a great feeling to know that everything we've put into making Kansas Speedway the best guest experience in motorsports is helping these fans create their own lasting memories.
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