Running The Show: Drivers As Track Operators

When racing was in its infancy, the only rules that existed were those the drivers created. Tracks were dirt ovals carved in a field or located at a county fairground. You showed up early, ate dinner off the tailgate, and stuck around after the race to help clean up the track or settle issues the officials may have overlooked.

There weren't any promoters skimming a profit off the front gate or trying to pay the mortgage with entry fees. A good night was when the fans outnumbered the drivers. That's how racing used to be, and it is how it remains at River City Speedway in the Pacific Northwest. This year, the Columbia River Racing Association started its third decade managing its own quarter-mile track at the Columbia County Fairgrounds in St. Helens, Oregon. Critics might say that letting racers run the show is akin to letting the inmates run the county jail, but in the case of this Oregon group, it has worked well. It is a bare-bones operation, more friendly than fancy.

"No one's getting rich off this track," says Sandy Fast, who has been with the CRRA since its genesis. "If you are looking to make money racing, you better go on down the road to some other track. But if you want to have a good time and feel like you are part of something that's special, you won't find a better opportunity than short-track racing." "The track was actually built by a promoter. I think it was before the end of the first season that he just walked away from it. He sort of told the drivers that if they wanted to race there, they'd have to do it on their own."

So that's exactly what they did. They created their own rules and fashioned some bylaws to establish a non-profit association to run the track. Every other year they get together to pick a new president, who is expected to take time off from racing to ramrod the Saturday night shows. Once each summer they act like a Kiwanis Club with cars and put on a benefit race for the county fair as a way to return something to the community that hosts them. Fast has been the association's only treasurer. She works the back gate every Saturday night, logging in cars and crews and collecting the modest entry fee.

"I sold the association's first pit pass," she says with some pride.

She's logged in fathers and sons and is now seeing the third generation of racers come through the gate.

"I've watched these kids grow up at the track," she says. "They are all like family."They work together. They play together. And sometimes they suffer together.