The Vault
OCT. 16, 1982 – A DIRT TRACK REVIVAL IN N.E. WISCONSIN
Posted on: Friday May 24, 2024
Adell’s Mike Melius was one of many Milwaukee/Sheboygan area racers who supported Seymour’s racing program on Sunday nights in the early-to-mid 1980’s. (Bob Bergeron photo)
October 16, 1982
HEINRITZ HOPES TO REVIVE DIRT RACING
FROM THE GREEN BAY PRESS GAZETTE by Dale O’Brien
Remember dirt track stock car racing? Bob Heinritz of Green Bay does, and hopes to job the memories of area race fans next summer.
In the Green Bay area, dirt track racing once meant packed grandstands, filled pit areas and good competition. Late model race cars driven by guys like Roger Regeth, Roger Paul, J.J. Smith and Jerry Smith kicked up mud on Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
But that was several years ago, when no one had heard of Reaganomics and few people – not even A.J. Foyt had heard of Kevin Cogan. Since that time, the dirt tracks at Oshkosh, Seymour and De Pere have bit the dust, so to speak, leaving Shawano as the once-thriving circuit’s last operating track. The dirt track at Sturgeon Bay operated this season, but that track never attracted many of the Fox River Valley’s top drivers.
With only one dirt track to race on, driers switched from the dirt to the asphalt, and many race fans followed. Shawano remained in operation, but with sparse fields of racers.
Heinritz, however, wants to see dirt track racing prosper again in the area. He, with the cooperation of the Outagamie County Fair Board, promoted three specials at the Seymour track this past season, was pleased with the results and plans to promote racing every Sunday night there next summer.
“People are hungry for dirt track racing,” Heinritz, operator of Speed’s Lounge in Green Bay, said. “Our response at the three races this year was tremendous. People want to see dirt track racing come back.
Before he won five straight Fox River Racing Club late model titles on the pavement at WIR in the 1980’s, Green Bay’s Scott Hansen wheeled a dirt late model for several years until 1983. (Bob Bergeron photo)
“And the response over at the bar, at Speed’s, has been great,” he added. “People just can’t wait for next season to get started. They ask who’s going to be there and things. There’s a lot of interest, a lot of questions.”
Heinritz plans to attend a convention of dirt track promoters in Eau Claire next weekend. Promoters from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa are supposed to attend and discuss a set of rules to cut the cost of racing a car.
Such rules, say Heinritz, would help attract more cars. Uniformity would help because drivers from outside the Fox Valley area could show up and know their cars would be legal. And cost-cutting measures would help because more people could afford to race.
And more cars would solve the problem that killed dirt track racing in the area, Heinritz figures.
“We didn’t have big fields of cars,” he said, explaining the downfall of the area’s dirt tracks. “That’s the one thing that has hurt dirt track racing. Lack of cars means lack of show.”
The three specials at Seymour averaged 56 cars per show, according to Heinritz. He said the final two were plagued by bad weather, but the first one drew a crowd of about 2,500 people.
Charlies O’Brien of Green Bay, who is charge of the weekly Saturday night shows at Shawano for the Shawano County Fair Board, also is enthusiastic about the future of dirt track racing in the area. “I think dirt track racing is coming back strong,” O’Brien said. “More and more people and more and more cars are coming back.”
Shawano enjoyed a good year, according to O’Brien, attracting about 35,000 fans during the season. “And we also got more cars,” he added. “We were able to reinstate the Late Model semi-feature because we had more cars.
Shawano usually had three heat races, a semi-feature and a feature in the Late Model class this year, O’Brien said. Plus, it had four heats, a semi and a feature for the Hobby Stock car. Hobby Stocks are much less modified – thus much less expensive – race cars.
Heinritz plans to have the Hobby Stocks as part of the weekly program at Seymour next year, too.
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The paved Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna had another very successful year in 1982, so track operators plan to make few changes for next season.
The weekly Thursday night stock car shows at the track drew an average of 4,200 to 4,400 fans according to Gary Vercauteren, the track’s public relations director. And all stock car shows, the weekly programs and the ARTGO and Red, White and Blue Series specials averaged about 5,000 fans.
Vercauteren sees the track’s success due to a payoff system that spreads the money around. Many systems give the top money to the top couple of finishers, but the WIR systems distribute it a bit more evenly.
“Instituting that type of system brought out more drivers, and that’s resulted in more interest,” Vercauteren said. “Now it’s a situation where we have local drivers coming to race and local people in the stands. And I think we consistently put on a good racing program that brings people back.”
The weekly programs at WIR were made up of three or four heats, a semi-feature and feature of Late Model cars on the facility’s ½ mile oval, four or five heats, a semi and a feature of Sportsman cars on the ¼ mile and a Figure-8 race.
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The dirt track in Sturgeon Bay, which ran weekly shows on Sunday nights, had an “improved” season this summer, according to publicity director Tom Wagner. The weekly programs of Late Models, Modified and Sportsman racing promoted by the Door County Racing Association attracted about 800 to 1,000 people “on a good night,” Wagner said.
Two years ago, the track did not complete the season because of attendance problems.
The track drew about seven or eight modifieds, 12 to 14 late models and 18 to 20 Sportsman cars each week. For next season the modified rules may be changed to attract the cars from the Eastern Wisconsin Stock Car Association which race weekly at Francis Creek and Plymouth.