JOLIET, Ill. – Mary Gescheidle just wanted a place to pee.
Four years ago, she and her husband, Jim, were driving from farm to farm trying to find a place that would allow them to camp later that year.
They were big NASCAR fans, and the farms south of Joliet now had the new Chicagoland Speedway as a neighbor.
The Gescheidles had come down from their hometown of Fond du Lac, Wis., a few months before the track’s debut race to scout for a camping spot.
“We had tickets for the race and no place to camp,” she said.
The reception wasn’t friendly. Many of the farmers didn’t like the track.
Stopping at Paul and Mary Bernhard’s farm should not have gone any differently – the Bernhards were strong opponents of the track. Mary Bernhard remembers how the ice was broken:
“They said, ‘If anything, would you let us use your bathroom, ‘cause we really need to pee,’ ” Bernhard said.
To their relief, she let them in. Unlike her neighbors, Bernhard was willing to listen.
The Gescheidles had camped at other NASCAR tracks. They told Bernhard thousands of race fans would show up in motor homes days before the race looking for a campsite.
The Bernhards could make big money, they said. Just convert some cornfields into a campground. The location, 2 miles from the track, was ideal.
The Gescheidles stayed for two hours while Bernhard asked their advice about how to make it work. After they left, Mary Bernhard knew she’d have to sweet-talk her husband into sacrificing some of their corn acreage to experiment with a new crop – NASCAR fans.
“I said, ‘Just give me 2 acres, honey,’ ” Bernhard said.
Party at the farm
Four years later, that 2-acre experiment has grown. The Bernhards now set aside 19 acres of fields for a temporary campground of 360 campsites. Charging $200 per site for the big NASCAR race week, July 7-11 this year, they took in $72,000.
Marysville in Snohomish County is just one site in the running for a new NASCAR racetrack. The International Speedway Corp. wants to expand to the Northwest.
However, many neighbors of the proposed site are against a track in their backyard. The Bernhards say it is working out, at least for them.
This year, people started to show up at the Bernhards’ farm on Wednesday, even though the big race, the Nextel Cup, was not until Sunday. For those five days, the farm transformed into a buzzing, marathon tailgate party by day and a wild barn dance by night.
The Busch Series race, held on a Saturday, is treated like a warm-up to the big event. But the fans who squeezed into one of the Bernhards’ three shuttle buses after the race obviously needed no warming up.
“WOOO HOOO!” whooped Linda Laveau. Fans on the bus – many obviously drunk – laughed approvingly. The bus felt like it needed to belch.
Most had a new beer to nurse, courtesy of Paul Bernhard.
Laveau had been partying with Rosie Howe. They had been to other races together, including in Las Vegas.
“This is our one vacation without the kids,” Howe said. “We love coming to the races. “We have a blast.”
“I’d go every single weekend,” Laveau said.
Somewhere, crammed in the back of the bus, were their husbands.
At the wheel was Charlene Kerwin, who drives buses for the school district in nearby Frankfort. She said NASCAR fans don’t cause her as many headaches as middle-schoolers.
“This is a good group,” she said.
The Bernhards used their original earnings to buy three used school buses for $1,800 each. Now they can shuttle their customers to and from the track in seven minutes on back roads.
Arriving back at the farm, the party would settle back to a simmer during the dinner hour and then reload for the barn dance.
“Thanks for the beer, Mary,” a man yelled to Bernhard as he hopped off the bus.
“Almost all the NASCAR fans are happy drinkers,” Bernhard said, adding problems have been minimal.
Deputy Police Chief Fred Hayes agreed, saying NASCAR-related incidents have been less than 10 each year.
By the end of the weekend, Bernhard will have only evicted one camper. Keeping track of names and addresses in a registry helps, she said.
“They tend to behave better if they know we know who they are,” she said.
Later, the 85-degree heat gave way to the smell of barbecue, the clink of tossed horseshoes, kids riding bicycles through muddy ruts and friendly offers of Kentucky moonshine.
The camping crowd was a mix: lots of families with kids but also retired couples and young adults.
Under an awning, a towering blonde member of the Texas Bikini Team chatted with passersby.
In the farm’s old 1960s-era cattle shack, a party band, Libido Funk Circus, wearing fake afros, warmed up. By the end of the night, at least one woman would flash her breasts at the band.
Bernhard’s brother, Bob Tracy, 44, described Friday night’s dance, for which he was the DJ. He tried to end the dance about 12:30 a.m. He’d already played all his best stuff – 1970s arena rock, a little country, ’50s and ’60s music, some dance tunes. But the crowd wouldn’t let him leave.
“They kept chanting, ‘Two more songs! Two more songs!’ ” he said.
So he obliged, ending it all with a live version of “Roundabout” by Yes.
“They went nuts. They went absolutely nuts. I cranked it up to 11 and a half.”
Not for everybody
Not all the track’s neighbors feel like partying. Unlike farmers, residential homeowners don’t have big fields to convert into money-making campgrounds.
Parking at the racetrack is free, so they can’t cash in on that, either.
For some of them, such as Ken Smith, NASCAR weekend is a big nuisance.
“Who wants to live near all that racket?” Smith asked, frowning at the drone of Saturday’s Busch race.
His neighbor, Joyce Marino, tried hosting campers the first year. But with little space, it was not worth it.
Saturday night, even she went to the Bernhard farm to set up a booth with her mother, Gloria Martin, selling food from the Country Cafe, Martin’s restaurant. Business in town was not good during race week because so many fans camp and cook their own food near the track, bypassing Joliet’s business district, she said.
Drawing fans downtown
Joliet’s leaders recognized that problem, so two years ago they started FanFest, a downtown event on Thursday night of race week that features a celebrity softball game for charity and other events.
This year, the event grew significantly when the city brought in Budweiser as a sponsor, said John Greuling, president of the Will County Center for Economic Development. Budweiser sponsors NASCAR’s most-popular driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Getting “Little E,” as he’s known, to show up was a big draw.
“We probably had 25,000 to 30,000 people in downtown Joliet,” Greuling said.
He hopes the short-term boost to Joliet’s image will start to pay off with more long-term commercial development. “I don’t think the expectation was that businesses were going to line their pockets with gold,” he said.
Can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em
Following the Bernhards’ lead, a few other farms also run campgrounds now.
The farms also have been able to cash in on other events, such as a concert by The Dead last year. The farms played host to a multitude of Deadheads, although the culture of those fans was decidedly different from NASCAR, said Dan Tracy, another brother of Bernhard’s.
“God, the bongos! They just about drove me crazy,” he said.
The experience with the campers changed his mind about the track.
“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. That’s what this is,” he said.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers.
This is the second of a four-part series that will answer Herald readers’ questions about the $300 million racetrack proposed for the north Marysville area.
The Herald solicited questions from readers, and dozens responded. To answer the questions, The Herald sent reporter Scott Morris and photographer Michael O’Leary to Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill., July 9-13 during NASCAR’s two most popular races, the Busch series and the Nextel Cup.
The site was chosen because of similarities to the one proposed here.
* Both have 75,000 seats and are about 1.5 miles around.
* Joliet and Marysville are near interstate highways on the outskirts of major metropolitan areas.
* Joliet’s population is about 120,000, similar to the combined population of Everett and Marysville.
* Joliet is a newer track (2001), so information on financing would be more relevant.
Upcoming chat
Didn’t get your question answered? Or do you have a follow-up question?
Herald reporter Scott Morris will answer questions about his NASCAR trip Friday at noon on the newspaper’s Web site.
To participate, go to www.heraldnet.com/chat. Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@ heraldnet.com.
You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers.
This is the first of a four-part series that will answer Herald readers’ questions about the $300 million racetrack proposed for the north Marysville area.
The Herald solicited questions from readers, and dozens responded. To answer the questions, The Herald sent reporter Scott Morris and photographer Michael O’Leary to Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill., July 9-13 during NASCAR’s two most popular racing series, the Busch race and the Nextel Cup.
The site was chosen because of similarities to the one proposed here.
* Both have 75,000 seats and are about 1.5 miles around.
* Joliet and Marysville are near interstate highways on the outskirts of major metropolitan areas.
* Joliet’s population is about 120,000, similar to the combined population of Everett and Marysville.
* Joliet is a newer track (2001), so information on financing would be more relevant.
What’s ahead
Monday: The partying starts days early.
Tuesday: Race day.
Wednesday: Lessons from Joliet.
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