FORESTVILLE — Jake Smulley says he keeps hearing the rumors.
“I don’t know where it started or how it started. ‘The track is closing down. The track is for sale’,” the promoter of Big Diamond Speedway said this week. “Big Diamond is not going nowhere. It’s not closing.”
Smulley said he has been confronted by people during his daily routine at local businesses and is asked often about the track’s future.
“We want to run the race track and we like running it,” Smulley said. “Of course, no one wants to own up as to where they heard it. It’s all small-town talk.”
Smulley said he fears the talk will have an eventual effect on the speedway and feels he needs to reassure the public.
“I know myself that, if I hear a business is shutting down, I won’t have any interest in going there,” he said. “It’s just the way I am. I don’t think it’s good for business. These race car drivers spend a ton of money and then they hear rumors are in the air. I hear more and more every day.”
Big Diamond has had problems in 2014 with its schedule, which was hurt early by persistent bad weather on Fri-
day nights. Seven of the first nine scheduled events were wiped out. That included the second annual Money in the Mountains program, a big-money race that was then moved to a Sunday show.
“When we race, it’s good,” Smulley said. “That’s all there is to it. When we don’t race, we don’t make money. That’s not good for a seasonal business. We only run about 25 days per year. I feel like we just got the season started in June.”
The season will end Aug. 31 with the annual Jack Rich Memorial Coal Cracker 72 program. Compared with some Pennsylvania tracks that remain open into late autumn, Big Diamond closes just as the high school football season begins.
“In this business, you don’t want to go head-to-head with anything,” Smulley said. “The Coal Cracker weekend is the biggest races of the year. I tried to run Sunday shows last year, and it’s tough. A lot of teams run low on money in July and August and there are less fans (on Sundays).”
In addition, two of the speedway’s high-profiled 358 modified drivers, Jeff Strunk and 2013 track champion Craig Von Dohren, have stopped appearing at the track. Smulley said that has not affected fan turnout.
“We had a good crowd on Friday,” Smulley said. “I honestly think this (track) is the fans’ Friday night out regardless of who’s where. We have a solid fan base. Our area doesn’t have a lot of outdoor entertainment.”
While not indicating it as a source of the rumors, Smulley said a dispute between speedway management and Cass Township over the latter’s 10-percent tax on admission fees remains an issue. The track had filed a lawsuit against the township and its supervisors seeking relief and damages, but Schuylkill County Judge Cyrus Palmer Dolbin dismissed the lawsuit in April.
“It needs to be resolved and move forward where both sides can agree,” Smulley said, noting the dismissal has been appealed.
In the meantime, Smulley said the track’s tire contract with Hoosier extends for two more seasons and that next season’s schedule is 80 percent completed.
In 2015, Smulley said, the sportsmen — a division particularly hard hit by the early-season weather — will be on the schedule at least 15 times. The 358 late models, a division that has experienced low car counts in its appearances this season, will be eliminated.
Next year, he said, the track plans to host the All-Star Circuit of Champions super sprints, the super sportsmen and the Super DIRT Series big-block modifieds — whose race this season was rained out — along with the American Racing Drivers Club midgets, which competed last Friday night.
He said the annual Georgie Stevenson Memorial for 358 modifieds may return to a format of twin 20-lap features, a plan that the program last had in 2012.
Most importantly, Smulley said, the track will stay in operation.
“I love auto racing and dirt track racing,” Smulley said. “That’s what we want to do. The track’s been here many years and it will continue to be there.”