Latest / Midwest Racing Central Today / Jefferson Speedway Spotlight with Scott Hoeft & Terry Tucker

Transcript

Jefferson Speedway Spotlight with Scott Hoeft & Terry Tucker · Midwest Racing Central Today

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everybody and welcome to this week's edition of Midwest Racing Central.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Today I'm Pete Pistoni and we're gonna talk about a racetrack that's got a lot going on all season long, but they got a big weekend coming up as well.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Jefferson Speedway is the racetrack.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Scotty Have and Terry Tucker are with us from Jefferson Speedway.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Boys, how are you?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: We are doing well today.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing good, looking forward to getting this uh event off and kicking.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of work goes into this.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh thankfully this will be our third one, so we've had some practice at it.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the Orange Blossom special this weekend, but I want to start with what we want to do here with the website is let people know about different racetracks.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, why don't you guys start by giving us a little Jefferson Speedway 101?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: What's the track?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Where is it at?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: When do you win regularly?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Divisions and all that.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Take it away, boys.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Give us a little Jefferson Speedway background.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Jefferson Speedway is a slightly larger than a quarter mile asphalt oval.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's progressively banked in uh both uh corners, but not the same in both corners.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a little bit like Darlington or Richmond, in that drivers have to set their cars up as a compromise between the east and the west end.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Has a reputation for putting together really exciting racing, a lot of side-by-side action.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: We boast probably one of the larger fields of cars in the in the Wisconsin for sure.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: We average about 115 cars a night on a Saturday night, and usually around four to five divisions.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh about 25 uh late models, uh, which are not super late, so like what we'd call pro-late models down south, sportsman cars, essentially big big spring late models, hobby stocks, and then we have what we call uh international cars, which are primarily front-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive, um modified high performance cars, and we have a stock four-cylinder class like every track should have.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we also run legends and bandoleros uh occasionally.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so we keep ourselves pretty busy.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And a brand new six-shooter division that's for points this year.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, we we've been having some six-shooter races in the past this year.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: We finally gave him enough nights where he can claim a champion.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we're getting making that wait.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Really good stuff.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I got to come up last summer, and you guys talk about the cornfield.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're literally in a cornfield.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you don't know about Jefferson Speedway, there's a cornfield right there.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: But my favorite part of the night was after the racing, which was really good.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: The turn one bar.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us about that.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: About people can hang it out down there, guys.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're actually in turn one tap right now doing this.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you look behind us, we tried to angle it where you can see Jerry Eckhart's door and Jerry Eckhart's face as poster.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully we got that.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you we both grew up, Mr.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Pistone and I both grew up in an era where you know racing was one thing, but it was always fun to have uh some camaraderie afterwards.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, most of the time, uh even uh even the adversaries on the racetrack can sit there and have a beer with each other, and most of the time it's civilized.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we like to think we're kind of a throwback to that.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we probably at the end of the race we have anywhere from 35 to 50 cars represented in the in the turn one tap at one time or another.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's uh it's good as a morale builder, and uh it also gives us uh gives us a chance to decompress after some fairly exciting uh moments.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I I totally understand that.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Another thing that struck me, guys, was when I was up there last year is the way you guys run the show.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: You start the races when you say you're gonna start them, you roll the next one out.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Can you kind of talk about what you're trying to give the fans when they come up there and spend the night at Jefferson Speedway?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we've always uh believed that you know the last thing you want to do is waste the fans' time.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: You want to provide them with the best entertainment possible, you want to uh reduce the uh unnecessary delays.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we have a very good uh group of people here that are dedicated to putting on the racing as efficiently as possible.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we get yelled at by people for being relatively impatient.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you want to get yourself in hot water uh here, cause an unnecessary yellow flag just because you just didn't want to, you know, go to the back of the pack or something.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the bottom line on the whole damn thing is we're trying to get people here and get them home at a reasonable time.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And we have like last Saturday night, we had 29 different race events, which is that's outrageously high.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: But we were able to get it done in a little uh slightly over a four-hour period, and there was a couple of delays.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: We had some kids' uh activities that ate up some time.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh time is at a premium here, downtime is always uh discouraged.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Don't mess up around.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if we uh we're supposed to start at six o'clock at six oh three.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: If there aren't cars on the racetrack, this uh fine gentleman is telling me kind of how it's supposed to go in a nice way.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: By 6.03, the international anthem should be done, the car should be getting off the track so we can start racing.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, I'm a little bit harsh on that regard.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I love it because again, I grew up, I was I did PA at Rockford Speedway.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: The Jerry family ran that track exactly the same way, so I totally understand that.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned you mentioned kids, and that was another thing I noticed when I was up there.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of kids running around.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: What do you do special to bring that next generation of race fans to Jefferson Speedway?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, last week we had about every kid's thing you could possibly have going on.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: We had stock car rides, we had a coin toss, we had a big wheel race.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm missing something.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're missing the bike giveaway.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, we gave away some backpacks, some bikes, and over 50 bikes got given out to the kids.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's great.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And they they were 90% of them were donated by race car teams, race car sponsors.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's a it is a testament just to the goodwill that the racers at Jefferson uh put out for the fans.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm proud of it.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm proud as hell of that.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: That that's really great.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to go through your schedule, but as I mentioned, you got a big one coming up this weekend, Saturday night, the Orange Blossom Special.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's for the world's oldest teenager, Jerry Eckhart, which most of us here in the Midwest know.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe those that don't know about Jerry, tell us about him and why did you put this race on on a regular basis up there at Jefferson?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, all right.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this we'll go through this.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's a we got like four or five uh different Jerry Eckhart stories, but the one I enjoy the most is that my father purchased Jefferson Speedway in March of 1968, and the first race that we had on the schedule that yeah was July the 4th.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, May the 4th of 1968.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as luck would have it, it was a miserable day, and sometime around four o'clock, we called the show off because it was misting and rainy and everything.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the only race car that showed up, even though it was raining, was Jerry Eckhart.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: So the first time that I met Jerry Eckhart was on my dad's first race, which was a rainout, and we ended up spending an inordinate amount of time sitting on top of some paps cases of beer and drinking our share.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we turned it into a typical rain out deal where everyone had a little bit of a hangover the next day.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good story.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: I like that story of all the Jerry Eckhart stories.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: I like that one the most.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to say before I don't I get distracted, you know, you mentioned the the Deary family and how they ran a tight ship.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: I have to tell you that there were two uh two people that my dad uh tried to emulate in terms of racing and race promotion.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: One of them was Hugh Deerie, and the second one was John Cation from Hale's Corners, Speedway.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and both of both of them were dedicated to putting out a quality program and and not uh not wasting fans' time.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Totally agree.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: No, totally agree.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, the time I was in Rockford, it was if you didn't that bomb went off at 707, and there better have been the trophy dash on the racetrack.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: You're 100% right.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we honor Jerry Ackhart.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the guy's been around forever, and there's he's been a fixture at not only this place, but you know, Slinger, Columbus.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's run to Corona.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: This guy's run all over the place, 83 years old and still winning races.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: If there's no better person to honor than Jerry, and he does it the right way.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's not in he's not fighting in the pits, he's just laid back, cool, calm, collective, smoking a cigar, having a couple whiskeys, and we uh joke about this on one of our podcasts for Jefferson Speedway.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: He still scales his car with grain scales, not the electronic kind.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was dumbfounded by that.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is that that threw me for a loop.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: See now, I'm a guy that grew up around grain scales, and I know that they're used properly, they're as damned accurate as this fancy long acre stuff.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: What uh is the entry list looking like?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know Scott, when I talked to you the other day, you guys were talking about entries and and who's coming.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: I saw you put that out on social media.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Who are some of the drivers that are coming up on Saturday?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right now we have 22 registered.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: We could probably have 25 or 26.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, you can't have a race at Jefferson Speedway, super late race, without Casey Johnson.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's gonna be probably the odds-on favorite to win, so you have that.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: But you have guys like Paulie Schaefer Jr., who's won probably two out of our last three superlate model events.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: He uh did a really good job of uh he won the Arkham Midwest tour race in May, and he was he was by far the the top of the field.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh Jevin Garowski, a young gun, he's won an ESA tour race here.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this one shocked me.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Dennis Prunty, who's basically a slinger guy, he's gonna come and give it a shot at Jefferson Speedway, the old cornfield for the Orange Blossom special.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to have Dennis Prunty.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen him race hard at Jeff at uh Slinger many times.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: You bet.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh defending track champion at Slinger, Grant Griesbach, he's signed up.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Gabe Summers, a Midwest Tour champion.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Levon Vandergies runs good all over, Max Kaler.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't want to.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's so hard to like name these drivers because you can't name them all because this field is stout.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Dorothy Jordan Du Boy, and we have we have a local favorite, Sean Shield.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: We have uh they use words like depth of field, and that's what we have going on right now.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: We have uh we have a strong depth of field.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Billy Braun won one of these deals last year.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um had an unfortunate circumstance later on in the night.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um is back for redemption.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: He was uh he was a few pounds light, and unfortunately, uh a few pounds light is not legal, right?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm looking forward to this event.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be fun.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, it's gonna be great.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so again, if you listen and you when you see this, go up to Jefferson on Saturday night.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: That is a great show.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Before we go, I want to ask about the rest of the schedule.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know there's a couple of things that stood out.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: You have the Wisconsin State Championships, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Those are coming up in September, and then the blackjack brackets coming up, although that looks like it's gonna be like a Pack or Bear game weather.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: You guys are gonna do that one a little later this year, aren't you?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's unfortunate.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think there's gonna be a whole lot of bikini tops out that day, but we can still have fun.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: How does that work?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Tell our uh listeners how that particular event works.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's a little different than a normal racing weekend.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the blackjack brackets are uh well, they're basically they're based on what uh the Rockford Speedway had in Bahama brackets in terms of like you have a very limited number of rules, primarily safety rules, roll cages, uh seat belts, etc.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: etc.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: etc.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then after that, you set a basically a um a maximum or minimum uh time that you can run, and then you go out and you qualify, and let's say you qualify in at you know 17 seconds, that's your time, and you can run that time all day long.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: You run it 1620 or 1650, you're gonna get black flag for you know, basically without being politically correct, dogging your time.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you don't like to hear that, but that's what happens sometimes.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyway, the idea is that if you've got a 16-second car qualified at 16 seconds, if you got a uh 16-second car and you qualify it at 17, your chances are getting through the the weekend are remote.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, and you get to see different divisions of cars racing with each other.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: You might see a hobby stock racing with a sportsman, a sportsman racing with a late model.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Umce in a while, you know.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a it's kind of uh kind of an interesting thing.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's more about having some fun, having some camaraderie, meeting afterwards in the turn one tap, you know, have just having a good weekend.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll look forward to that to end the season.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: But again, first things first on Saturday night orange blossom special, Saturday night racing at Jefferson throughout the month of September, as well as we mentioned the Wisconsin State Championships.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Guys, I really appreciate you giving us some time here.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Best of luck this weekend and the rest of the season and uh going forward at Jefferson Speedway.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say one thing to the fans that haven't been to Jefferson Speedway.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Super late models, you're gonna see going three wide at this racetrack.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: There is no if there's pavement here, they can race on it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Three wide, two wide.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: The excitement at that's why it's called the action track, Wisconsin's action track.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be nuts this weekend.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Our uh track is 60 feet wide, and uh because of the progressive banking, uh, you are it's technically possible to be competitive at any part of the racetrack.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's pretty interesting.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be good.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of room to roam there.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Guys, thanks for the time.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great weekend.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk to you soon.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: See you everyone Saturday night.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: Goodbye.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, guys.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Scotty, Terry, thanks very much.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Again, Jefferson Speedway, your destination of this weekend for the Orange Blasphem Special.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: This is your destination here, MidwestracingCentral.com.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have everything covered from Jefferson and all the racing coming up this racing weekend.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Pete Bastoni, thanks for watching Midwest Racing Central today.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next time.