Dale McDowell
Just about one year ago, famed racer Dale McDowell paired with Chattanooga area businessman David Duplissey to become the new owners of Boyd’s Speedway in Ringgold, GA. And according to the Late Model star, their first year running the third-mile dirt oval has been a successful one.
The 2014 season will come to a close this Saturday night as Boyd’s hosts the second half of a two-part ‘The Gobbler’ weekend. Cleveland Speedway will host its share of the twin $5,000-to-win Super Late Model headlined events on Friday night.
“Everything was good,” McDowell said of the past season. “In our first year we learned a lot, and we’re still learning a lot. I wasn’t there every weekend, but we’ve got a good staff out there with the existing staff that stayed on board with us. Gar Dickson is still kind of running everything for us so there weren’t a lot of big changes and we had a lot of help along the way. It was fun to be a part of it, and it was definitely a different look with trying to plan races and events. It was enjoyable.”
McDowell, who has spent many years in dirt racing as a competitor, says that everything went pretty much according to plan at the track that has operated since 1952.
“It was really a calm year,” the 2014 Dirt Late Model Dream winner said. “You have issues from time to time with competitors’ concerns, but basically, we didn’t have any major surprises.”
But there are things regarding the running of a race track that McDowell is having to familiarize himself with on the business side of the sport. For one thing, the longtime Late Model racer had to learn about the administration of the various support classes that race on a weekly basis.
“I’m still behind on that with not being there every week, but Gar being there it made that easier,” McDowell said of the varying divisions that compete on the track. “Basically, I let those guys handle that. That’s something I’m sure down the road I’ll have to catch up on more and more to keep up with the rule changes and the rules for those classes. But at this point, we just turn it over to the Gar and the staff and let them handle it.”
One of the first moves McDowell and Duplissey made after taking possession of the speedway was to move its regular weekly show date from Friday to Saturday. The ownership duo believes that was their best option.
Boyd’s Speedway
“I feel like that was a good move on our behalf,” the 48-year-old driver declared. “We’ve got some other tracks in the area on Saturday too. But with us trying to grow the facility and the location of it, we need to race on Saturday. A Friday night track is always good for the racers, but for the owners, it’s according to the level you want to grow your track. If you’re content with maintaining and not doing very big shows, Friday night tracks are fine. With everything that we want to do with it, and I’m speaking for David Duplissey as well, to grow it and bring bigger events in, a Saturday night venue is what your shooting for.”
Another option the track tried this past season was doing a midweek special event. The Southern Nationals race held on a Tuesday evening in July that played out before a packed house with an electric atmosphere.
“It was definitely a huge turnout for us,” the Chickamauga, Georgia native said. “It kind of caught us off guard because we haven’t done a lot of midweek stuff in this area. And obviously with Austin and Ty Dillon being there, that drew some NASCAR fans that maybe weren’t so much dirt fans. We had a variety of different people there. It was definitely a big event and we’re going to do it again next year.”
Duplissey
As far as next year is concerned, expect to see racing in the same classes as before at Boyd’s. However, the upgrade of the facility that began when McDowell and Duplissey took over will continue.
“Everything’s going to be basically the same. We don’t know for sure what we’re doing scheduling wise. We may focus more on special events. We’ve got a lot of construction stuff to do at the track this winter, weather permitting, along with all the stuff we’ve already done there. I’m sure we’ll get on that just a soon as we can.”
Track officials are in the early planning stages for the track’s traditional opening race but McDowell says a date for the early season ‘Cabin Fever’ race will be nailed down shortly after this weekend’s event.
