The Vault
BRYAN “WOODY” WODACK – “IT TAKES AN EYE”
Posted on: Friday August 4, 2023
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The following is an excerpt from the 2017 release “Life In The Past Lane – The Next Generation.” This book is available for purchase on this website by clicking on the “books” tab.
During his 13 year tenure as the promoter of Thunder Hill Raceway in Sturgeon Bay, Bryan “Woody” Wodack has been chased by a disgruntled driver with a baseball bat.
He’s been sued by a police officer who was also a racer, threatened by an irate sponsor with vial, hateful text messages at 4 a.m. and nearly wound up in divorce court and bankrupt on multiple occasions. Being the captain of the ship at Thunder Hill has cost him many friendships along the way.
Like any race promoter he’s had the highest of highs, and the lowest of lows.
Yet, looking back, Wodack has no regrets.
The Sturgeon Bay native grew up as a kid attending the races at the Door County fairgrounds.
“When I was two years old my parents brought me to the races when they still had the old wooden covered grandstand,” Wodack said. “I remember going to the races ever since. Irv Ettien was my guy. He had the lime green machine. Back then I had a sharpie and made my own shirts. I remember his battles with Reggie Cochart and all the Norway, Michigan drivers who’d come down to race the winged modifieds.
Irv drove both classes. After the races the race teams pulled their cars on the midway behind the grandstands. As kids we would touch the header pipes and they were still hot from the races.”
It was the passion of racing that spawned a career in sign painting for Wodack, who was lettering race cars before he even had a driver’s license. “I was 14 years old when I started painting signs,” Wodack recalled. “Back then everybody had their race cars hand painted. There was no vinyl. My parents drove me out to Uncle Tom Jorns and Dave Gabert’s place.” The first car he lettered was an off road buggy that ran at the Brush Run in Crandon.
As the years went on Wodack’s work evolved into his own business called Woody’s Sign. It was in 1995 when Wodack lettered his first IMCA modifieds with vinyl stickers as opposed to being hand painted. “Looking back the first two modifieds that I lettered locally were either Felix’s (Todd Dart) or Dave Zeitler’s,” Wodack recalled. “It was actually Butch Georgenson’s idea. He said to me one day “why don’t you do a vinyl race car? So I did.”
To be an effective graphic artist it takes an eye. “It’s something I believe you either have it or you don’t,” Wodack said. “I haven’t gotten a paint brush out in years but I will someday soon. Back when I was younger the Sign Wizard was Ace. He was kind of competition. I was taking some cars from him. Then Chad Nelson and Mark Boerschinger got Victory Vinyl going over in Little Suamico. And over the years they’d take some cars away from me. They were good too. It was all business in the end. I was just a one man band for the most part. I’ve lettered over 1,000 race cars in my life. I’ve never had a store front. I just worked out of my garage which was my shop.”
As time went on, Wodack met his future wife Mary who lived down the road. “I actually did have three goals in life as I was growing up,” Wodack explained. “One was to get married. Second was to own a sign business. And third I wanted to be a race promoter.”
In the 1990’s Wodack was able to check two of those accomplishments off his list. The third one – promoting a race track – was on the horizon yet.
Wodack had sponsored some driver’s race cars and was also a track sponsor at both Luxemburg Speedway and at his home track. “Rick Ledvina was running Thunder Hill then and Rick Goral and Bobby Dorner had the track in Luxemburg,” said Wodack. “I got my name out there with the sponsorship at the tracks and the driver’s cars. Sometimes I’d give a deal on lettering a car. Others put my name on for free.”
A door opened for Wodack to promote a Fall special at Sturgeon Bay in 2000. “Four people partnered up and I was one of them,” Wodack said. “We promoted this Fall special.”
Three years later Wodack partnered with another Sturgeon Bay businessman Brian Duquaine. The pair was the promoters of the weekly, Saturday night program at Thunder Hill Raceway. “I thought be promoting the track and with my lettering business I could keep my overhead low,” Wodack said.
The previous promoters, Tom Stark and Todd Jensen, did not have a banquet for their racers after their final year in 2002. “So we had a banquet for the drivers,” said Wodack. “I had no clue really what it took to put a banquet on. But we did it as a sign of good will.”
In the local racing ranks, Sturgeon Bay was sort of considered the “little sister” to the next closest track, Luxemburg Speedway, which ran on Friday nights. Being close to Green Bay, Luxemburg always boasted car counts roughly 20 to 30 cars more weekly than Sturgeon Bay, and often more than double the crowds. “We had water on three sides of us being up on the peninsula so that always made it tough sledding,” Wodack said. “In a way it was like no man’s land up here. What’s more, the bomber class, which boasted close to 50 mostly Door County drivers in an affordable class that promoters didn’t have to shell out a huge driver payout, was dying. “We did start out with the bombers but it wasn’t long before we switched them over the IMCA hobby stocks.” Luxemburg was also running the IMCA hobby stocks as well.”
Wodack quickly discovered that promoting weekly stock car races in Sturgeon Bay was not a real lucrative gig financially. “Most weeks up there I’d average between 500 to 600 people on a good night,” Wodack admitted. “It was always pretty difficult financially up there. We needed some help – a big sponsor if you will.”
Darren Otto came to the rescue. Otto was a street stock driver from Pulaski. Otto was sponsored by Forest County Potawatomi. In the early 2000’s the tribe had gotten heavily involved in the northeast Wisconsin racing scene. The tribe sponsored the track at Langlade County Speedway in Antigo, and many drivers, including national champion off road ace Johnny Greaves, dirt late model standouts Pete Parker and Gordie Seegert Jr., and many other modified and WISSOTA street stock drivers that competed at Antigo.
Otto had sponsorship from Potawatomi and through Potawatomi’s Ora Monegar secured a $10,000 sponsorship in the first of six years for Wodack. “Back then ten thousand was a big sponsor for a track,” Wodack explained. “With Potawatomi there was always a verbal agreement and they’d cut me a check right before the season started.”
According to Wodack the sponsorship money helped offset weekly expenses – everything from driver’s payout, paying the workers, insurance, utilities, advertising, etc. The sponsorship, during its peak, was $55,000 with an additional $10,000 bonus to drivers in a point fund at years end. “The truth is I would not have stayed open all those years if it wasn’t for Darren Otto through Ora Monegar and Potawatomi.”
Wodack and Thunder Hill remained well fed from 2003 through 2007 with the tribal sponsorship. In 2008 the relationship between Wodack and Potawatomi took an ugly turn for the worst. “They brought in a new guy who was calling the shots within the tribal council,” Wodack recalled. “They had verbally agreed with me prior to that guy to give me a $30,000 sponsorship for the 2009 season plus additional cash for the fall special.”
That sponsor money never came. One week before the racing season started the tribe denied Wodack the sponsorship. “I called and called and called them to no avail,” Wodack recalled. “I actually went to them and pleaded my case. The tribal council voted 5-3 to deny me the money. I was devastated. I was $39,000 in the hole from the prior year of racing. I had kept Potawatomi on board the year prior with all the advertising basically in a good faith gesture.”
What didn’t help at the time was the number of Door County drivers that raced at Sturgeon Bay was dropping. Popular modified drivers George Henkel from Sturgeon Bay and Darrell Massart from Brussels – both of whom had strong fan followings at Thunder Hill – retired from racing. “It started to get tough enough as it was in 2008 when the economy bottomed out. Crowds kept dwindling and it was a good friend Mike Kelsey who bailed me out,” Wodack said. Joe Hernandez and his business Prestige Yacht Coatings bailed Wodack out with a $20,000 sponsorship for the next three years, thus keeping the lights on.
Little did Wodack know a storm was slowly brewing to the south. 141 Speedway in Francis Creek, a little over an hour away located in northern Manitowoc County, had converted their quarter-mile, paved oval into a high-banked, third-mile clay oval in 2010. The first year the track was dirt it ran on Wednesday nights. Ultimately the privately-owned track in Francis Creek would wind up shaking up the local dirt track racing scene in a big way.
In 2011 141 track owners Bruce and Renee Conard, along with Merle Lisowe and Joe Higgins, made the decision to switch their night of racing to Saturdays, going up against Thunder Hill on the same night. “To me that was the start of the decline at Thunder Hill no two ways about it,” said Wodack.
What complicated things a bit was the sanctioning body that Thunder Hill had used for many of its division over the year. That was the International Motor Contest Association (IMCA). 141 had requested to be IMCA sanctioned in 2011. Initially IMCA president Brett Root approved the sanctioning. “When they sanctioned 141 Speedway on the same night I went through the roof,” Wodack recalled. “I got a call one day from Jerry Wenzel one day and he said, “did you hear that 141 is getting the sanctioning?” I called (Brett Root) up. I threw a fit. I thought “so much for the loyalty of the track in Sturgeon Bay being sanctioned since day one. To me, that loyalty got thrown out the window. To me with IMCA was all about the money.”
While Root promptly did an about face and canceled plans to allow 141 to sanction in 2011, the writing was already on the wall. Sanctioned or not – car counts continued to dwindle and sparse crowds attended the races at Thunder Hill. The following year in 2012 Root ultimately did award 141 the sanctioning on Saturday nights. “It was tough because before the 141 thing came into play I considered Brett Root a friend,” said Wodack. “We’d go to Packer games together. We’d go gambling. After that happened, I saw IMCA as being all about the money at that point.”
In 2015 Wodack made a last ditch effort and switched his program to Sunday nights. That venture also appeared doomed. ’15 would be the last season Wodack promoted the track and his contract was not renewed. “It’s funny when you’re not a promoter anymore and you’re done – nobody’s got time for your anymore,” said Wodack.
Still, there were bright spots along the way. Like Sturgeon Bay’s Bernie Reinhardt, a driver who earned perfect attendance at the track since the Hill reopened in 1993. There was also Tracy Thrun, Wodack’s flagman for several seasons who volunteered his time the last few years, even chipping in preparing the dirt track.
The “circle of death” as the track is called sat idle with no racing engines roaring in 2016 while a new local group of racing enthusiasts running a limited schedule. “I miss (preparing) the track and I do miss the drivers and the fans,” said Wodack. “My wife Mary was a huge help. She worked the ticket booth and concessions and got into this to help when initially she really didn’t want to. My parents helped by babysitting our kids when they were younger.
But I’ve learned that promoting a race track can be a brutal, very brutal business. People don’t realize this. It’s also a sport where you have to be “all in.” This sport is all about sacrifice.”