Skagit Speedway Gets a New Surface

Posted on 10/27/2009 by -

For the past 55 years, Skagit Speedway has had the luxury of it's own clay deposit to use for the tracks surface. That has come to an end. The convienence of having clay just outside turn one has also had its drawbacks. "The clay we have has a very high silt content" said track owner Steve Beitler "Dust has always been a problem since the early days and the cars are getting more demanding of the track. It is very difficult to get a track that has enough moisture to keep the dust down but not so much that is doesn't get rough. I went on Speedweek this year and got samples of all the tracks and saw what they did for track prep and watched the results through out the night. I sent those samples along with six other samples from various areas to be anylized. When I got the results back it showed the northern Oregon tracks had the best make up of dirt/clay. This showed true as both tracks were smooth, racey and vitually no dust. Cottege Grove had the best mixture of all the tracks."


Former racer Jeff Jansma, owner of Jansma Construction had a large pile of material from a jobsite. "When I saw this material it looked pretty good to me" Said Jansma, "I called Steve and gave him a sample, looks like it might be the right stuff."


Skagit Speedway purchased over 3000 yards of the new material and Jansma hauled it in. "I was suprised that we found this material so close to the track, everything I had checked had a high content of silt, this stuff was really quite low in silt." Beitler commented "It layed out real nice and has a rich tan/brown look to it. The track packed in tight and took water real good. We were able to reshape the corners and get the banking more consistant."


Turns one and two were raised up about two feet so the cars don't drop down into the corner on the entry and the bowl was fixed on the exit of turn four.


With the great weather after the season the track crew was able to complete the track work and paint all the gaurd rails and fences. "We are ready for the spring as far as the track is concerned, I am really optimistic that this new surface will be great for the racers and the fans will see a big difference" concluded Beitler.

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