MARYSVILLE, Calif. — Marysville Raceway, a quarter-mile dirt track here, will provide much-improved viewing for fans and drivers when its season opens Feb. 26.
A large investment has been made by promoter Dennis Gage by replacing all the bulbs around the track with LED lights.
And an oddity of this major improvement is it likely would not have happened without the pandemic.
Gage used a Small Business Administration loan, available to help get things back on the track for businesses after being impacted by the pandemic. The amount that could be qualified for was based on size of business in various categories.
“The attractiveness of that,” Gage noted, “was the low interest and now the repayments have been delayed starting over the 30-year loan.”
The need to do something with the lighting and the electrical limitations of Marysville Raceway has been in place for quite a while. Gage finally addressed that issue.
“I was willing to gamble on it,” explained Gage, “because I don’t have 100-foot poles. The big mystery is how the light will spread depending on the height and the spread rate of the LED. It was definitely to my advantage with a 30- foot pole. I knew the LED light would not dissipate and disappear before it hit the ground.”
With a third of the power needed compared to the old track lights, Gage estimates he will save $500 a night on electricity. If accurate, his savings on electricity would approach $15,000 a year, about five times the interest on the SBA loan.
An added benefit is LED light quality does not lessen over time and has a 15-year life expectancy.
“I had multiple issues,” said Gage, “with lack of service power, maxed out lighting and it also impacted my other services such as concession power because the primary boxes were overloaded with all this. We finally had an available resource and got enough information to do this change, not guessing.”
The new lights were tested during a recent practice and received rave reviews.