Racing friends reconcile, reunite. With track politics finally set aside, old wounds allowed to heal

Posted on 9/30/2008 by Craig Murphy -

Wherever she turned, Debbie Brownfield was getting hit by the message.


When Brownfield, the widow of former Grays Harbor Raceway promoter Fred Brownfield, opened her bible in the morning, there it was.


"I'm a believer in Jesus Christ," Debbie said. "In the morning, I get out my bible. That's how I get directions to live. Last November, it felt like every time I opened my bible there was a verse about bitterness, anger, resentment or jealousy. I started feeling, 'OK God, I get the message. It's time to patch up this broken friendship.' That is a heavy load to carry."


And so Debbie picked up the phone, and called Steve Beitler, the man who spent so much time with the Brownfields over the years until taking over Skagit Speedway in 2001.


The Brownfields started promoting races at Skagit in 1994, and attempted to buy the track in late 1995.
When the deal fell through, the Brownfields came to Elma, where Fred transformed a dated dirt track into one of the top facilities in the country.


But there was resentment towards Skagit, resentment that was transferred to longtime friend Steve Beitler - the man who has the Brownfield children in his will - when he took over Skagit Speedway.


When Fred Brownfield was killed while lining up cars at Elma in June 2006, the feud was well-established.
How much? When it came time for Fred's memorial service at GHR at the end of the month, Debbie didn't want Steve there.


"When Fred died, Steve and Fred were not treating each other well," Debbie said. "I knew Steve would want to come to the funeral. I knew he didn't hate Fred. But I knew if he came, the focus of a lot of those fans on one side or another would change the focus. If they changed the focus to the feud, I would have fallen completely apart. I couldn't handle even one speck of controversy.


"So I did something that was really hard to do, and in retrospect really cruel," Debbie added. "I sent Steve a note, and asked him not to come to the memorial. I know it hurt Steve really bad. It was really hurtful. At the time I was just concerned about myself. I couldn't handle one more scary or icky thing. He very respectfully didn't come, which was hard for him, because it made it look like he didn't care."
"That probably hurt more than anything," Beitler said. "That really, really hurt. I didn't understand why you tell someone not to come to a funeral when you've been friends for 30 years. Then I was mad. I thought, 'You guys have really taken it too far.'"


Speedway divides friends


The Brownfields and Beitlers didn't always resemble the Hatfields and the McCoys.


For more than 25 years, the Brownfields and Beitlers were close friends. Fred and Beitler raced against each other. After he stopped driving, Fred sponsored Beitler for a while on the World of Outlaw tour.
Beitler even put the Brownfield children in his will.
"I was racing around the country, and my dad said I need to make a will out," Beitler said. "I never married, and never had kids. Fred's kids were the closest I had. I put a large percentage of my will towards them for college education, or a house, or whatever. I never took them out of my will. I love those kids."


The rift dates back to 1995. The Brownfields had invested close to $200,000 into Skagit Speedway and had both a letter of intent and a verbal agreement to buy the track. At the last minute, the deal fell through.
"There was shock, anger, bitterness, disbelief, disappointment," Debbie said. "Soon Skagit meant anger and disappointment for us."


Beitler recalls when Fred Brownfield got the call from his attorney that the deal fell through.
"Fred was sitting in my living room when he lost Skagit Speedway," Beitler said. "It really hurt him bad. I don't think he ever got over it."


Especially when Beitler told the Brownfields in 2001 he had the opportunity to purchase Skagit.


"Steve was getting the biggest and most well-known (dirt) track in the state," Debbie said. "Here our friend is taking over the place we couldn't have. It was a little awkward. That's where it started."


A damaged friendship was the one concern Beitler had before purchasing the track.


"When I took over the track, I said my only fear was that it would compromise my friendship with Fred," Beitler said. "I knew it bothered Fred that I was buying it. I said Skagit Speedway will not die. I said to Fred, 'You finally have a group up there you can work with. We can combine our efforts and make Northwest racing incredible.'"


Instead, the opposite happened because the Brownfields and Beitler didn't work together. Beitler noted he and Fred had different ideas about what should be done with Sprint car racing in the Northwest.


"They didn't mesh," Beitler said. "He wanted me to do some things that I felt weren't in the best interest of Skagit. I had to do what I thought was best for Skagit and the families that rely on it."


As time went on, two clearly sides formed: those who supported the Brownfields and GHR, and those that supported Beitler and Skagit.


"People would come to us and say, 'Did you hear what Beitler did?'" Debbie said. "And people would come to Steve and say, 'Did you hear what the Brownfields did?' People wanting to be on Steve's good side would share stories about what the Brownfields did, and vice versa.
"You shouldn't automatically believe (the rumors), but we did," Debbie added. "We didn't call Steve up and ask if he was doing these things. To maintain a friendship, you should ask that friend before believing what you hear, because it may not be true. It just starts escalating. If you're told something offensive, you look for more offenses. Rather than dealing directly with the person you're dealing with, you believe things and pretty soon you have an attitude."


Beitler said the initial willingness to work together with Fred dissipated over time.


"We both tried to work together on a lot of stuff," Beitler said. "We both tried, but it's sad we didn't work together."


Tragic turn


Everything changed on June 16, 2006. While Skagit Speedway was holding Dirt Cup, its biggest race of the year, GHR was hosting the Northwest Modified Nationals, one of its biggest events of the year.


Brownfield was getting cars lined up for the D-Main when a driver coming around turn 4 did not see the promoter on the track. Brownfield was hit, and died instantly.


"I know if Fred had survived his injury, Steve would have been the first one down there offering to help," Debbie said. "But it was instant. There was no chance for Fred to say 'Life's too short,' and it was too late for Steve to go down and offer his condolences. But if Fred had survived, that's what would have happened. They could have coordinated some really cool stuff."


"I loved my mother very much. When she died, it took a lot out of me," Beitler said. "But I think it impacted me even more when Fred died. I was on the tower. My office manager came up. She said she just got call from Elma, and Fred got hit."


Beitler contacted Larry Kelly, a close friend to the Brownfield family.


"He was crying," Beitler said. "He said, 'It's bad. I think we're going to lose him.' I couldn't believe it. Larry called back a couple of minutes later, and said we lost him. I just lost it. I broke down, just started crying. I said, 'It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Damnit Fred, you're not supposed to die.'"
Both Beitler and Debbie noted they always figured Fred and Beitler would eventually make up, laugh about how hard-headed they were and race their motorhomes across the country to the next track.


"I was sick," Beitler said. "I was not myself for a long time. All of that other stuff didn't matter anymore. We never had a chance to reconcile our friendship. We were cordial, but we didn't go out of our way to spend time together. It just killed me that night. Part of me died that night. I felt so bad for Debbie and the kids."


Beitler left several messages for Debbie, all of which went unreturned.


"I guess I wasn't ready," Debbie said in retrospect. "I felt I would be disloyal to Fred by being nice to Steve. Then I realized where Fred is, and he's no longer holding onto those grudges. It's much better to exchange the ugly feelings for happy feelings."


Reconciliation


All of which led to Debbie meeting Beitler for dinner in November. Beitler was hopeful the meeting would be positive, but he wasn't sure what Debbie had on her mind.


"About an hour in she said, 'I want to put all this bad blood behind us,'" Beitler recalled. "To me it was just a huge relief. I did a lot for them, and they did a lot for me. I was pleasantly surprised when she said that. I said, 'I would love to be your friend again.'"


The friendship has grown to -and surpassed - what it was before.


"A friendship repaired is sometimes stronger than the original friendship," said Debbie, who noted she felt "about 50 pounds" lighter after that first dinner. "We've had to work through issues that led to this in the first place. You have to look at the attitudes. "You have to say, 'Please forgive me.' It takes an even bigger person to say, 'Yes, I forgive you.'
"When you look back and see that's how you were acting, it humbles you," Debbie added. "It makes you grow as a person. It's a painful growth. I can't believe I was so hard-hearted, so eager to believe the worst. Steve and I have gone through a lot of the issues. At least 50 percent of it was rumors with no truth."


Beitler said renewing the friendship has been a great blessing.


"It's meant everything in the world to me," he said. "Even my office staff has commented, 'Steve, you're a different person.' I'm so happy in life right now. I'm at ease. My life is as good as it's been in forever."
But renewing one friendship is also a painful reminder for Beitler of the fence he didn't mend.


"I wish Fred and I could have reconciled," Beitler said quietly. "I think about that a lot. More than anything, I think about it for Debbie and the kids. They took a lot of the blunt."



Tracks now united


Debbie raised eyebrows by attending several events at Skagit this year, and Beitler did likewise after going on a tour of the Elma facility with Debbie during the Evergreen State Sprint Challenge.


"I had to do that to break the ban," Debbie said of attending Skagit. "People who were loyal to Fred felt they would be disloyal to Grays Harbor by going to Skagit. I went up there to show them it's just a track. I got a lot of shocked looks. I couldn't go anywhere, because people kept wanting to talk to me. I was very warmly welcomed."


Beitler's visit to Elma was his first since 2002, before Fred rebuilt the track.


"Jaws were dropping in the pits when Debbie showed me some of the changes they made," Beitler said. "I credit Debbie for healing the Sprint car scene in Northwest. More than anything, that's what I'm happy about. There's no more Skagit versus Elma, Brownfield versus Beitler. There's no more crap like that anymore."


At first, close friends of both were dismayed by the renewed friendship. Slowly, the attitudes have changed.
"If I sit down with them and explain it was my heart that needed the healing, and how much hearsay compounded the problems, they start opening their heart," Debbie said. "There are some people who like to hold onto grudges. They will stay that way. It's been slow, but a lot of friends have come around."


But first Debbie and Beitler had to come around.


"You learn a lot of lessons by doing things the wrong way," Debbie said. "You have to say, 'What part did I play in it?' My attitudes stunk. My actions were overreactions. Some assumptions were based on lies. It feels good to release all of that.


"It's hard to look deep inside and see your own shortcomings," Debbie added. "Now I feel like I'm a better person than I was before the feud started. I see how easy it is to get sucked into negative thinking, how easy it can be to not be the person you should be."
Debbie and Beitler both believe a key lesson anyone can learn from their situation is the need to communicate.
"You've got to talk," Beitler said. "If you're really somebody's friend, you've got to talk with them. By not talking, you assume the worst. If I had just driven to Fred's house and said 'I'm not leaving until it's straightened out,' things would be different."


Freelance writer Craig Murphy may be reached at murphyc3@yahoo.com.