Drag Illustrated Issue 178, September / October 2022 | Page 130

✖ DRAG ILLUSTRATED ROUNDTABLE ✖
NOW OWNED BY THE KORETSKY FAMILY , MAPLE GROVE RACEWAY HAS HOSTED A DIVERSE MIX OF EVENTS OVER THE COURSE OF ITS 60-YEAR HISTORY . MOST RECENTLY , IT JOINED THE PDRA TOUR IN 2021 .
through . That morning , getting the racetrack ready , making sure the electronics are going to work properly , making sure the fire extinguishers are in the right place . I never thought about it that way . I used to pull into a racetrack and I wanted to have the best parking spot available . That , and the racetrack being good , was all I was worried about .
Owning the place and trying to make 200 people happy rather than just yourself , it ’ s definitely a little bit of work . To make sure the parking areas are right and the place is clean and neat . As racers , we all used to drive around and try to find garbage cans to take back for our pit area , so we make sure there ’ s plenty of garbage cans for everybody .
When I race now , I have a new perspective . Last year , I ran my 10.5 car in Virginia . Virginia is an absolutely spectacular motorsports park . To see what Tommy has done there , and being a track owner myself , to see what he ’ s done and all the improvements he ’ s done , it ’ s amazing because you put a lot of money into these places and you really don ’ t get a whole lot back . You ’ ve really gotta love the sport to put yourself through all this . It ’ s not like you ’ re making piles and piles and piles of money doing this .
The investment is huge . You have to buy the place and you have lots of help and insurance . If you want to update the facility , it ’ s a little bit of a cost , which a lot of people don ’ t realize when they pull in the gate . When you charge them $ 25
or $ 30 to pull in the gate , they don ’ t realize how much money you just spent so they can come to a facility that ’ s as nice as it is . KORETSKY : Well , I really didn ’ t know how much work really went into it . Now I can appreciate what the track owners go through .
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What has surprised you the most about owning / operating a track ? FRANKLIN : I ’ m not going to say I ’ m surprised by a lot of it . I think the presumption when it ’ s a busy day , everybody just thinks it ’ s a home run . And I ’ m talking about what everybody from the outside looking in thinks . I think it ’ s easy to look back and think , “ Wow , they knocked it out of the park today .”
At the end of the day , it ’ s not a home run like everybody thinks due to overhead costs and the costs of advertising and all the things that it takes to operate a successful event . I don ’ t know if that ’ s a surprise , but I think if I was a general spectator , that ’ s the same thing that you want to think . Like , “ Wow , they must ’ ve really did good today .” Because what else could you want ? That ’ s probably the biggest challenge or the biggest surprise that you get . BARTUNEK : What ’ s surprised me the most ? The support . The people that come to our facility , how much they absolutely love that place . When I bracket raced back in the ‘ 80s , my home racetrack was Englishtown . We had Englishtown , we had
Atco , we had Island Dragway . We used to go to Englishtown on Sundays , but Island Dragway ran on Saturday nights .
Our place down there , it seems like a lot of our normal weekly people , they won ’ t even race unless they come to our place . Our points races are on Saturday , and on Friday nights , you ’ ll have people parked up already and they ’ re barbecuing and having a good time . It ’ s like one big family down there at Union . It wasn ’ t like that when we raced in New Jersey . Here , it ’ s so much more family oriented than it was when I was in the Northeast . KORETSKY : It ’ s kind of funny , but I never realized how many porta-potties you needed . We spent a fortune on the bathrooms at Maple Grove . We put air systems in so it sucks the air out . We put new windows in so you get some kind of flow . Making sure there are plenty of nice , clean bathrooms was important .
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As someone who ’ s now seen both sides , what advice would you give to racers so they have a new perspective when they pull into a track next time ? FRANKLIN : I think the honest truth to it is nobody that I know of out here is hitting home runs every day . Maybe that was done in the past . Maybe 30-40 years ago you could do that because there weren ’ t the costs that are involved with doing it now . But it takes a lot to put on an event – track
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