Arena Racing USA - Stepping Up

Dennis got the idea to put a racetrack inside a hockey rink when he was at a Richmond Renegades hockey game with his cousin in 1992.

"I heard my cousin got excited watching hockey games, so I went to watch him because he never got excited about anything," Dennis says. "I saw him actually get excited, but all I could see in my head were scaled-down race cars running around the arena. I thought it would be neat to have fans so close to the action. That's kind of how this whole idea came about, and then I got started trying to make it happen. The vision was born and it has consumed me ever since."

Acting upon his instinct, Dennis turned his vision into what turned out to be a short-lived dream.

"At the end of 1993, we built a track and had 50 cars racing inside the Richmond (Virginia) Coliseum," Dennis says. "It was a wooden track, and back then the cars didn't have a suspension. It wasn't that bad, but I think we were just ahead of the right time to do something like this. So I went back to work building race cars, feeling like a puppy dog with its tail between its legs. I told myself that if I was ever going to make this idea work, I was going to do it right. I never forgot about it."

"I knew it was going to take over half a million dollars to do it right, and I didn't have that kind of money at the time. Eventually, I found somebody who would loan me some money-so here we are today."

The Big Saviors
After regrouping and finding the funds needed to make a second attempt at getting Arena Racing USA off the ground in 2003, Dennis and his partners have been much more successful. Proof of that is they've already sold 48 of 56 teams in the Virginia area. Dennis expects to sell all 56 teams that will be racing in the Charlotte market pretty quickly because so many race teams are based in the area. In fact, Dennis says he has mapped out 343 arenas across the country that could potentially host an Arena Racing USA event.

"Will we expand into that many different places? Absolutely not," Dennis says.

Little did Dennis know at the time that his job of building race cars would lead to a relationship that could help pave the way for the success of Arena Racing USA. Dennis built the Late Model cars that Joe Gibbs' two sons-Coy and J.D.-were racing in the Southeast. In a casual conversation with Coy Gibbs, Dennis told him about what he was doing with Arena Racing USA and was told last May that he needed to call Don Meredith, one of Joe Gibbs' closest business associates.

"Coy told me to call Don and tell him about Arena Racing USA because he was pretty much his dad's right-hand man, and he was always looking for good business opportunities," Dennis says. "So I called him up one day and told him about what I had going on, and he was like, 'Oh man, don't tell anybody else about this. We need to sit down and talk some more.' From that point on it was like the full-court [press] started. As a matter of fact, Don started selling me on the idea more than I was trying to sell him on the idea."

Gibbs was quick to put his stamp of approval on the idea of becoming a partner in Arena Racing USA and also brought in another investor in Norm Miller, who is the chairman of Interstate Batteries. This June, it was announced in a press conference at Joe Gibbs Racing that they were going to be heavy supporters of Arena Racing USA. Stewart then became a partner in Arena Racing USA, as did his Nextel Cup teammates Hamlin and Yeley.

"I love any kind of racing, but arena racing struck me as something that could really take off," Stewart says. "I've raced Midgets and Sprint Cars indoors, and there's definitely an added level of excitement. When I found out you could do the same thing with a half-scale stock car, but on a banked track with 14 other cars around you while making laps in 10 seconds, I was in."

Hamlin, a native of Virginia, has raced-and won-in the Arena Racing USA and sees no reason that the league can't be successful.

"I drove in the Arena Racing series a few years ago in Norfolk," Hamlin says. "I won a few features and also met Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. there. It was awesome. It's an ingenious idea and I like it a lot. It's not a matter of if arena racing is going to be successful. It's a matter of when. Needless to say, I'm pretty happy to be a part of bringing arena racing to Charlotte. It'll give others the opportunity to either begin their racing careers or just have the time of their lives."

Because there is such a large field of cars, there are heat races with 14 cars in each heat until the field is dwindled down to a final 14-car feature. The champion at season's end earns a $10,000 payday for his season-long effort. The portable aluminum track costs around $400,000, according to Terry.