Raceway back in business

PENWELL As Gary Gardenhire put it, Penwell is essentially a tiny abandoned oilfield town; lizards and weeds now occupy a coffee shop and a gas station off Farm Road 1601; the post office is the center of vibrancy.

Until race days. Those, too, however, were almost over early last year, when Penwell Raceway was about to shut down.

The track opened in 1966, its heyday depending on whom you ask. Even Gardenhire's parents raced there, as their little boy soaked in the grease and the noise and the races, dreaming of becoming a racer himself, which he eventually did become.

So when a banker called early last year to tell him Penwell Raceway was on its deathbed, Gardenhire heard the brakes screeching to a halt.

"I had no intentions of buying this place," Gardenhire said. "A banker called me and said, ‘Hey, this place is going, it's going cheap, are you interested?' And I said, ‘No.' He said, ‘Are you sure?' I'm like, ‘Well, how much?'

"He told me a price and I said, ‘I want it.' It was bought literally in five minutes."

Two hundred acres, made up of a raceway and a whole lot of ugly, for $150,000.

A good deal, Gardenhire thought.

"This place has been here since '66," he said. "They had the winter nationals here. It was a big deal. All the big-name drag racers who make a living doing this have raced out here. It's just part of history that we want to keep alive.

"It's my history. Some of my best friends I met out here. My parents' friends. It's like reunion, it honestly is. Race day is like a freakin' reunion."

Since Gardenhire and his two brothers, Greg and Jerrod, took it over, the gatherings are growing, the biggest likely today at the Summer Nationals at the renamed Penwell Knights Raceway. It will be taped and scheduled to air on the Fox Sports Network.

Penwell is an outlaw raceway - a term given to any raceway not affiliated by the major racing circuits - and, like today, holds races across the spectrum, from motorcycle events to the "Quick 8-1/8," which gathers the top eight cars in a 1/8 mile race.

The entry fees are relatively modest and the variety of races gives more a chance. This has been part of Gardenhire and his brothers' strategy from the beginning, and it's led to a higher quality of cars and drivers at recent races.

"The word is spreading," said Gary Gardenhire.
Today's event is akin to an independent band's concert being taped by MTV, the buzz growing so much that others could not help but take notice.

"It's a sign, I'm not gonna say of the future, but it's a place that's becoming more and more popular," said Odessan Alan Bradshaw, a two-time National Hot Rod Association Top Alcohol Dragster champion who will participate at Penwell today. "More and more people are bringing high-dollar cars in the last six months than that track's seen in the last 10 years."

Since last April, Gary Gardenhire said, they have put more than $1.5 million into the facility toward upgrades such as professional-level asphalt, new track surfaces, bleachers, concession stands and about 40 acres of paved parking.

The focus, he said, is on the racers and the spectators, not so much on the profit. The types of races are diverse, which is different than other tracks.

"We're an independent track doing what pro tracks are doing," he said. "We've raised it to another level.

"I want the track owners all around the country to realize there's a different way of doing things. We put on these races like no other track has ever tried. We listen to what racers want. If there's something they don't like, we change it."

Since opening, there has been an effort to tie in races with raising money for different causes. Some proceeds from the Summer Nationals, which Gardenhire hopes will become an annual event, will go toward a fund set up for 3-year-old Odessan Shaylee Crosson, who was attacked by a pit bull earlier this month and has undergone surgeries.

On Thursday, a welder was adding more rows for sponsorship signs along the track. Some are to accommodate the recent corporate sponsors that have been added, others for area companies that have donated items to keep the track going. Even if they don't ask, they get a space on a sign, Gardenhire said.

It is this attention to detail - from the junior dragsters pit to the handicap-accessible stands - that also keeps the track successful, he said.

It is work he didn't think he would be doing, not before the brothers purchased it.

"The weekend we bought it, our dreams starting rolling," he said. "All the stuff we wanted to do. Everything we do, we go the extra mile."