FORESTVILLE — For the second time in two years, Big Diamond Speedway promoter Jake Smulley has felt he has to defend the speedway against rumors that the track will be closing.
Smulley said Monday he wanted to dispel talk that the Cass Township speedway was going to close after Friday’s program.
“I heard them from about two or three weeks ago,” Smulley said of the rumors. “It’s in the racing community, definitely in the racing community. I’m assuming that’s where it originated.”
Following a slow start
because of the late winter, the speedway has been able to open nearly weekly over the past few months. Last weekend’s George and Georgie Stevenson Memorial show that included fireworks drew the largest turnout of fans so far this season.
And yet the rumors persisted.
“It’s just frustrating to the point where I know people will talk and we’re going to do our own thing and continue to move forward,” Smulley said. “It’s more of a nuisance when you have drivers and car owners calling and asking, ‘Hey, is this true? What’s going on?’ It’s a lot of unnecessary phone calls, text messages.
“Obviously, if we were going to shut down the racetrack or we were going to sell it, we’d put out a press release about that and everyone would know. We certainly have no intentions of doing any of that.”
Smulley said Big Diamond is still recovering from the slow start to the 2015 season.
“We raced once in March, we raced once in April, and the rainouts hurt,” he said. “You don’t make any money if you’re not racing. Earlier in the year, when we did race, we didn’t have good weather, and weather means everything nowadays. There’s so much other stuff to do.”
Smulley said the track enjoyed success in 2013, but struggled in 2014 when Big Diamond switched to a required Hoosier tire for its regular racing divisions of 358 modified, sportsmen and roadrunners. Several big-name modified drivers and race teams decided to leave and have since returned since Smulley allowed again the use of American Racer tires.
“Obviously, with the switch to the Hoosiers in 2014, the competitors were trying so many different things to get hooked up to the Hoosiers and get an advantage,” Smulley said, “I was preparing the race track differently to try to help these guys to keep going. But the guys were changing so much and the racing suffered.”
Meanwhile, Smulley said the dispute between Big Diamond and Cass Township over the collection of amusement taxes from racing programs continues, but it is no basis for the rumors that Smulley said have been swirling lately.
Smulley said the majority of the track’s 2016 schedule has been completed and again will feature several traditional Big Diamond race dates — season opener, Money in the Mountains, a visit by the United Racing Club 360 sprints, the Stevenson Memorial, Prelude to the Coal Cracker and the Coal Cracker. He said he is still working upon additional attractions.
But for the meantime, Smulley said. “We plan on finishing the (2015) season strong.”
Tower City sprint team
gets 4th in Speedweek
SELINSGROVE — A 410 sprint team based in Tower City placed fourth in the annual Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek series that concluded Sunday night at Selinsgrove Speedway.
The Zemco Headers team, owned by John and Pee Wee Zemaitis and featuring driver Lucas Wolfe of Mechanicsburg, scored 1,020 points to place behind Speedweek champion driver Stevie Smith of New Oxford, who won a record five races and amassed 1,286 points. Smith drove a car owned by former Big Diamond Speedway 358 modified standout Fred Rahmer.
Aspers’ Danny Dietrich was second in points while Spring Grove’s Greg Hodnett placed third in the series of races at Lincoln, Williams Grove, Path Valley and Hagerstown speedways.