Bear with me for the inevitably long essay post but I haven't had the chance to catch the replies to this thread and my posts in a while, so here goes.
Seldom do you ever see that kind of money, and in turn, sheer amount of improvements being put into pre-existing short tracks in the U.S. of that magnitude and in this day and age. It truly warms my heart to see that coming out of Waterford...and to see that the new owner of the speedway is one who truly cares about local short track racing.
It is good to see that Waterford is now stepping up to par as far as infrastructure is concerned with a select few other local short tracks in New England now, with those being; Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, Stafford Motor Speedway, Lee USA Speedway and a few others (Perhaps Thunder Road, Seekonk and Oxford Plains). I find myself in recent years under the elitist
belief that tracks that witness speeds in excess of 80-100 MPH and are not fully walled in like some of the aforementioned tracks are a lawsuit waiting to happen...and unfortunately that probably applies to a good number of oval tracks here in New England.
Case and point...Star Speedway in Epping, NH which incidentally is but a couple miles down the road from Lee, witnessed two of the most vicious and miraculous accidents that I have ever seen in recent years where a Small Block Supermodified obliterates the front stretch fencing -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crru6vUTyJ0 , and a Mini Stock rides the wall until coming in SEVERE contact with jut-out in the wall -
https://youtu.be/zxjd1tcwS80?t=28s . And lest I forget when another Small Block Supermodified spun off into the bushes in 2015 and rolled -
https://youtu.be/KuxRPuv9L4w?t=12s .
By divine intervention perhaps, nobody was injured at all in that fence crash.
Sure, it may appear that I have a grudge against the track but that is not entirely unjustified. My first ever race that I went to as a child was at Star Speedway in the early early 2000's. A few years after that the upkeep and the cleanliness of the Speedway deteriorated
drastically to the point of it becoming a total trash heap, which eventually led me to discovering Lee Speedway in the mid 2000's, it got so bad in late 2009 that Star actually closed for the entirety of the following year, 2010, after the track failed inspection codes multiple times and the former promoter got into a late fees battle with the town committees. I've only gone back to Star once since then. However, in recent years Star Speedway has experienced a large resurgence both in fan interest and promoting/operating power which is really exciting to see...bringing in tons of small business and local sponsors, setting up large special payout races like the SBM 125 (Open Ashpalt Modified Race), the Star Classic (ISMA Supermodifeds) and much more. I may just have to go back there for a race or two this season!
Now to close, racing season is inching ever closer for Lee Speedway with the ACT Late Models coming in approximately 15 days! In my anticipation I was rummaging through my old videos and found this video from 2014 of the Test and Tune day the day before the Governors Cup 150. The cool thing about Lee's ACT test day is that the promoters open up the track to any and all divisions from across New England which gives me the opportunity to see some cars thrash around that I would never be able to see run there otherwise -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5bAXGF9CBA .
Do Enjoy the video, and bring on racing season!
