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| Sep 7, 2008 |  |
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The State of OUR sport; Past, Present, and Future A continuing series of interviews through the eyes of YOU, our Teams, Promoters, Tracks, Sanctioning Bodies, and Fans, and in this case.....a racetrack. Part 1:Tribute to a Champion “CHAMPION MOTOR SPEEDWAY”. CARSON CITY, NEVADA - 1964-2005
So much has been said here on Racing West about our Mesa Marin, I wanted to also give my personal tip of the hat to another of our favorite places we’re losing this year. She was known as... T-Car Speedway Champion Motor Speedway I found this track about 5 years ago or so on one of my family trips up to the Reno area. Our family event was done for the day, so I did what I normally do on a Saturday night in the Summer. Look for the local racetrack! (much to my wife’s dismay of course) It didn’t take long to find Silver State Raceway in Carson City. I didn’t arrive till dark, but I could already tell I was gonna like this place. Reminded me a lot of my old home track of Saugus with that cool dose of charm a track of this era brings. This is racing as I enjoy it. For those of you that haven’t been here, I’d acquaint it most closely with an Orange Show style layout, with one unusual exception, no real wall in the turns. You go off into the brush, literally. It was kinda fun to see cars get stuck up there (a much better option than being in the wall, don’t ya think) and try to rock them off. I recently chatted with Les Kynett, promoter of Champion. Here’s some background he gave me. T-Car as it was known (Tahoe-Carson) was originally built in 1963 by Barney Pederson here in Carson City. He had no experience in running a speedway, but enjoyed auto racing. He hired a fellow by the name of Ted Walker who was a boxing promoter here in the Carson area who also had no experience in running a speedway or auto racing. But the owner Barney Pedersen had told Ted to go on down to Sacramento and look at West Capital Raceway, look at San Jose Speedway, and also Stockton Speedway and see what he could do at duplicating those successful operations and bring it back up here to T-Car Speedway (Tahoe Carson Speedway). So Ted did that and quite frankly from about 1964, their first full year of operation through his last year about 1972 as promoter they had VERY very successful years. Packed grandstands, they were doing a tremendous job. In 1982 I became the announcer and the marketing director for advertising sales for then what was the old T-car Speedway (Tahoe Carson Speedway) in Carson City Nevada. I was the announcer from around 1982 to 1985 and then we purchased the track in the Winter of 1985 and opened in 1986 as the new Silver State Raceway. We ran Silver State Raceway until 1990 when a fellow by the name of Larry Burton came up from Roseville California and made us an offer on the Speedway and property. In 1990 we turned over the operation to Larry Burton. At the end of the 2005 season on September 27th it was purchased and escrow was closed. The speedway was closed down and all of the property the speedway sat on, the 30 acres as well as the 140 acres surrounding the speedway were set for home development, which is currently now underway. And a short tribute in pictures. Les kindly sent these for everyone to enjoy. We will also have a link with many more…..
I was there for the final night of racing at Champion on September 17, 2005. As Les says, “It was as it should be”. Great racing, beyond capacity packed grandstands, enthusiastic teams, unbelievable celebration donuts, and first time “Champions”. What more could we ask, she went out with a BANG. T-Car Speedway, bye for now, you’ve done well...........
Andy Daddario Comments about my article can be sent to andydadd [at] yahoo.com
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