By John Sleeper
Herald Writer
Steve Beitler’s dream was to run a race track.
Thanks to Mother Nature, however, the beginning of his first full season as the big cheese at Skagit Speedway has been an unmitigated nightmare.
Unseasonably cold weather, snow and rain will postpone the speedway’s opening day from April 13 to April 27. And it’s nobody’s fault, at least in this world.
“It’s just been real wet,” said Beitler, who bought the speedway from Jim Burrow in August. “It’s been a real late winter, when you think that 12 days ago we had 10 inches of snow up here. The ground is so saturated that you can’t even get cars out on the parking lot.”
And that doesn’t even address the issues of the 1/3-mile dirt-track oval. As of Tuesday, crews haven’t even been able to work on the track’s surface, given the constant, sopping precipitation that has turned the track into nothing recognizable to race fans.
The trick is to let the track dry as much as possible. If races start too early in the season, water in the track will cause rolls and holes. Once that happens, it takes months to correct.
“We need about five or six days in a row of no rain to really get some progress,” Beitler said. “We got the surface packed down nice and tight last fall. We’re going to wait until the absolute last minute before we go on the track, because once you break the surface up, the water gets down inside a lot easier. Right now, it’s sealed off a little bit, so we want to wait until the very last minute before we start doing anything.”
Beitler is no stranger to the speedway or sprint-car racing. A World of Outlaws Rookie of the Year in 1989, he competed at Skagit Speedway in the early- and mid-1980s.
“I’ve had a passion to run a speedway for about 15 years,” Beitler said. “This is what I’ve worked for for a long time. My ultimate dream was to run Skagit Speedway. I’m just so darn lucky that I get to do exactly what I wanted to do.”
Once the speedway opens, Beitler said, fans will notice that the cars will pit in the infield, not in a location away from the track.
“That’s been just huge to the fans,” Beitler said. “We’ve had fan mail and phone calls and fans are just so happy to have the pits on the inside. Just about all the racers do, too.”
Also, Beitler said, there will be larger entry ways and a lighting system that, Beitler said, will exceed the requirements for live television, five to six times brighter than before. Also being added are a new sound system and eventually, new restrooms, Beitler said.
No races have been canceled. The end of the season has been moved to Sept. 28 and could take place as late as Oct. 5.
The Jim Raper Memorial Super Dirt Cup is set for June 13-15; the 360 Nationals Aug. 9-10, the Northern Sprint Tour show May 10-11 and the World of Outlaws race Aug. 23.
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