Survival

One of the first things the new management did was get drivers involved. They began with Kenny Shepherd, a California-based stock car driver with a reputation for doing things the right way. Shepherd climbed out of the race car in 2002 and traveled around the country to look at the state of short track racing.

"I spent a lot of time in grandstands around the country and was shocked to see what short track racing was like from the spectator side," he says.

What he found was splinter-plank benches, poorly prepared food, indifferent management with more emphasis on the week's bottom line than on the long-term health of either the track or the sport.

"It wasn't a spot where a lot of families wanted to go to be entertained," Shepherd says. "And if someone came to a race for the first time, just to see what it was all about, they didn't get much incentive to come back.

"I knew it didn't have to be that way. I remember going to small tracks where there was real excitement, where racing was entertaining and the fans walked away at the end of the night figuring they got real value for the price of their ticket."

Shepherd knew the fans were only part of the equation. He called the drivers together to see what would bring them back to the speedway.

"One of the things we realized is that over the years, a lot of bad feelings had developed," explains Condren. "Kenny went a long way to convince drivers they needed to give us a chance to turn things around."

Riverside Motorsports Park took over the track under contract in January and completed purchase of the site three months later.

"When we took it over, we found about 40 percent of the seats were dry-rotted," says Condren. "The lights were something from a '50s era football field, hanging on poles that listed about 30 degrees. There were two stadium speakers, one pointed at the stands and one pointed away from them."

They paved the pit area, added Musco lighting, hired a chef and bought $200,000 worth of kitchen equipment. They also wired the track to use transponders for scoring and installed a wireless Internet system to send data back and forth between the tower and the pits.

"Then we hauled away about a dozen or so wrecks laying around, including a couple old wreckers, and bought new stuff," he says.

"One of the biggest improvements has been the pits," says Jim Pettit, a two-time Southwest Series champion. It used to be that when we came here we had to pack sheets of plywood for the jacks and jackstands."

They repaved and widened the half-mile oval to create another racing groove to allow more passing. They crisscrossed the infield oval with layers of pavement to road course configurations.

"I didn't have a grand plan for the track," says Condren. "I showed up about 8 a.m. and stuck a bunch of stakes in the ground in a pattern that I figured would work. When the paving trucks arrived a few hours later, I told them to just fill in between the sticks."

The widened track is smoother than the previous surface, but retains some of the character of the old oval.

"It still has the bump in Turn 4," says Pettit. "It still drives like Altamont, only a lot better."

Condren likes nothing more than strapping a visitor into one of the two-seat school cars for a quick trip over the new surface. The ovals are fast and smooth with 12- and 14-degree banking in the corners. The road course can be configured 18 different ways, he says, offering road racing clubs or vehicle manufacturers the opportunity for a variety of circuits. He also added the obligatory figure eight.

"Ya gotta have one of those," he says. "Purists don't figure it is racing, but the fans in the stands-the ones buying the tickets-like it for the pure entertainment value."

Then, armed with photos, plans, and purchase orders, Condren flew to Daytona Beach to plead his case directly to NASCAR. He convinced them to sanction the track and put it on the Elite tour and Grand National Division schedule and give them a Dodge Weekly Series designation.

"That gave them credibility," says Pettit, who won the track's Late Model championship in 1996 and 2000. "Right away, we drivers know they are in for the long term."

NASCAR and the new owners brought him back.

"You had the impression the previous owners just didn't care," says Philpott. "With John and Kenny, you get the feeling they are here to stay. The improvements they've made are great. We've finally got a place to race that's wide enough, where you don't arrive and just assume you'll tear things up before the end of the night."

NASCAR's approval came with a challenge. It insisted the track couldn't run its NASCAR show on Saturday nights.

"It made us reconsider how we planned to do business," Condren says.

The track opted for two days of racing each weekend.

Return of Nascar

During any given week, the track may host a USAC open-wheel event, karting, motorcycles, drifting competition, or a club day on the road course.

The owner/manager says he's been contacted by track owners and promoters around the nation who are interested in what he is doing at Altamont.

"I'm willing to talk to anyone," Condren says. "I understand that not everyone can do things on the scale we've done them at Altamont, but not every track needed as much improvement as Altamont.

"Mostly, what we did is sit down and approach the track from an outsider's perspective. We weren't encumbered with what had been done before, because we weren't wedded to the past."

On Saturday, it hosts visiting series such as USAC Midgets or demolition derbies, motorcycle shows, and other non-NASCAR events. Sunday's program is a "twilight" show of NASCAR divisions, which ends early enough to get fans home in time for a good night's sleep. The '06 schedule included visits by both NASCAR touring series and the California-based Super Late Model series that is expected to absorb many of the NASCAR Northwest and Southwest Tour cars when that series folds at the end of the year.