Submitted by Dave Panske

There have been many ups and downs over the past 32 years that N.E.W. DIRT has been running the weekly Sunday night racing programs at the Seymour Speedway. Overall, it has been mostly positive.

Until the past couple seasons, the club has been able to work through the down side of promoting a weekly race track.

If you are a club member, and have been attending the club’s monthly meetings, you should be aware of the problems the club faces. The information has been shared with the membership that does attend.

The financial problems have been present for a few years with a couple members picking up most of the shortfalls.

The Fair Association, which owns the fairgrounds where the track is located in Seymour, notified the club in September, that past rent needed to be brought up to date, or they would look at other options for the facility in 2016.  Through several meetings, options were looked at, but there was not a quick fix for the long term problem.

At the October election meeting, the board recommended that the Fair Association be notified that there was not a solution for the club and to see what happens. After a discussion, the membership there agreed.

Dave Panske, a founding member of the club and a member for the entire 32 year span, made a proposal to the club that would clean up the mess in exchange for the club assets, which would, in effect, end the club’s run.

A special meeting was called for Monday, Nov. 30. All 155 members were notified and 25 attended to discuss and vote on the proposal. Discussions brought no new solutions forward. A ballot vote was taken with a 23-2 margin voting to accept the proposal.

Since the vote, there have been several meetings to proceed with the changeover.

The main issue right now is that the track will be running in 2016 — and beyond — on Sunday nights.

Contract discussions will be finalized shortly, which will prompt an open meeting to present details of what will be happening at the track.

One issue already set in motion, with the warm fall and early winter weather sticking around for awhile yet, there will be clay put down yet this year.

This will be an extensive project to finish in the spring, which will push opening the season back to May.

Many details need to be worked out, and a meeting will be announced ASAP, hopefully before the first of the year.

There will be information available at the Lakeshore Motorsports show in Manitowoc on Jan. 30 as well.