When Hall of Fame track announcer Todd Behling flipped on the microphone just passed 6:30 p.m. central time, he welcomed back fans with a bit more oomph.
“It’s great to have you (back),” Behling said.
“Thank God we’re here,” said Mike Held, shortly after winning the super late model dash to start the evening’s program.
Throughout the evening, praise and appreciation was made well known, especially for Thelen for his work to get Slinger open.
“Todd has done an amazing job in getting this track going,” Held said.
Other tracks around Wisconsin and elsewhere in the country have either opened or plan to open within the next few weeks. Beaver Dam Raceway, about 70 miles northwest of Milwaukee, will host a doubleheader for the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series on June 5-6, which was originally scheduled for a single-day event June 20.
Madison Int’l Speedway has a challenge ahead of it. Madison Int’l Speedway won’t open before June 23, according to its Facebook page.
“As Public Health Madison & Dane County puts their Forward Dane plan into action next week, it will not yet allow for outdoor sporting events with more than 50 people in attendance,” the post reads. “All oval race and street drag events at Madison International Speedway through June 23 have been either canceled or postponed. The McKarns family appreciates your continued thoughts and understanding during this time for their family owned and operated facility located in rural Dane County. It is their hope to host an event with Fireworks on Friday night June 26. Details will be released in the coming weeks.”
Tracks around Wisconsin and the country are trying to work with state and local officials about the need to reopen and how to do so safely.
For Slinger, in cooperation with guidelines set up by officials, including those from the Washington-Ozaukee County Health Department, a 25 percent fan seating capacity was implemented to help with social distancing measures. Car counts were capped as well to avoid crowding in the pits. Other measures included no back-and-forth access between the pit area and the grandstands. No fans were allowed to enter the pit area at any point, even after the races. There were also plenty of hand sanitizing spots.
If that’s what it took to reopen Slinger, everyone was on-board.
“It’s pretty awesome,” late model driver Jordan DeVoy said. “I love seeing race cars all over the place.”
Gundrum was in attendance for the opener and shouted into a microphone while standing on the front straight, “It’s great to be out and about. Finally, we get to leave the house.”
It’s officially race season, albeit not the one drivers envisioned when they laid out their plans in January or February. According to many drivers, including Johnson, 2020 is going to be a different kind of race season.
At this point, that’s OK.
“There’s been very few tracks that have been given the green light to open up,” Johnson said. “We kind of just been … if we see a race and it looks like we can go, we’re going to go. We don’t know if we can run for points yet. As they start to open up, we’re going to start racing.”
Johnson emphasized the need for drivers and fans to go out and support the local short tracks once they’re allowed to open in order to get the tracks through these challenging times.
“The fans are itching to get out so I think they’ll get full stands,” he said. “The few races they lost, hopefully the ones they got will make up for it.”
Regrettably, DeAngelis said the season already feels like it’s a wash out.
“It’s a shame,” he said. “I hate to say it but this year in racing is kind of like a wipe. You’ve almost got to go race by race. Whatever is going to run is going to run.
“It kind of sucks from a sponsorship standpoint because sponsors aren’t looking at you like you’re not going to run as many races because you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
But if the last several weeks has taught anything, the drivers are just grateful whatever tracks can open are doing so.
“It feels good,” DeAngelis said.