The pair was beginning itsr fourth year at Placerville, a town that played a big role in California‘s historic Gold Rush of 1849, when COVID-19 slammed the brakes on their plans. While tracks in other parts of the country continued to operate, California health officials were rapidly shutting down public venues in an effort to contain the virus.
“After four years, things were looking up financially,” Russell recalled. “We just broke $1 million in revenue for the first time and were building up to a bigger 2020 when this thing hit.”
Like many California promoters, Russell struggled with limited revenue from streaming services and the support of understanding sponsors, but with no fans in the grandstands and no revenue from concessions.
“COVID was a very hard hit and we were not sure what the future would be,” Russell acknowledged. “We even bought another business just to be sure we had a consistent, year-round income.”
The 2021 season — the year of fire — helped Placerville recover from the year of pestilence and ended with Russell‘s biggest event, the Hangtown 100.
Racers have expressed their appreciation for the improvements the couple has made to Placerville.
“The racing here used to be good and now it‘s phenomenal,” says Jimmy Trulli, who is in his 33rd year racing at Placerville. “We have a lot of young guns coming out of karts. We used to have six or seven guys who could win regularly and now we have 20 every week.”
Even though the couple had to struggle through the disruption of the fire last year, the sport took notice of their diligence when Scott and Kami were named 360 Promoters of the Year by the Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum‘s season-ending poll, marking the second time they have received that honor.
“All of the people nominated for this award are respected in the sport and some of them are friends,” said Russell. “Even being considered is a reward and I think it‘s cool that people recognize our efforts to keep this place going.”
Promoting the race track is just the most recent connection to a fairgrounds both have known all their lives.
“We both grew up here, born and raised,” said Arnold, about their roots in this mountain town about 40 miles up the interstate from Sacramento.
“We‘ve done 4H projects with our kids at this fairgrounds. My dad sponsored cars and raced hardtops in the 1970s and my uncle raced late models.”
Russell was “a late bloomer” when he decided to start racing, originally in karts for four years before moving on to stock cars, which he raced for 13 years.
His switch from driver to promoter was the result of an off-handed quip to the previous promoter.
“It started out as a joke with Alan Padjen,” Russell recalled. “He was getting chewed out by somebody and I joked, ‘Are you ready to get out?‘ A year later, he remembered the joke and we had a conversation.”
When the conversation ended, Russell sold his race car and the couple‘s new career as promoters began in the winter of 2015, a switch that Arnold thought would keep Russell at home instead of a working out of town during the week.
Nonetheless, the first couple of years were a struggle as the couple kept a schedule that was as tightly packed and precise as a space shuttle launch. Russell kept his job with a drilling outfit in the San Francisco Bay area, which required him to leave town at 3 a.m. Monday morning and not come back until Friday evening, when he would start track prep for racing on Saturday. Looking back, Russell says the schedule “was a bit overwhelming.”
That left Kami to deal with the business end of the track during the week, which ranged from communicating with race teams to taking inventory and ordering food for the concession stands, before doing payouts on Sunday. In a week that didn‘t seem to have enough days, “we were literally on an hour-by-hour schedule,” Arnold recalled.
Those early years “gave us the chance to lay a foundation for how we wanted to do things and put our own spin on things,” Arnold added.
The couple has been its spin on things for the last seven years, which also includes creating the Elk Grove Ford Sprint Car Challenge Tour presented by Abreu Vineyards.