MADISON, Ill. – It’s a Saturday night and Lenny Batycki is in his element.
Wearing a Carhartt jacket, blue jeans, and a Gateway International Raceway ball cap, he is at Highland Speedway, a dirt track near GIR, the multi-purpose motorsports facility where he has been the vice president and general manager since December, 2006. He talks to anyone and everyone, be they fans or racers or track staff. He preaches the power of racing with the fervor of a travelling minister, spreading the gospel of speed.
He talks about racers they know, like Illinois native Justin Allgaier, and how he got his start on dirt tracks just like Highland’s and how they can see their hometown favorite at Gateway for the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 in his #12 Penske Racing Dodge. He talks about the unity of racing, about how the sport is most successful when everyone is doing well, not just one facility. He talks about how racers and fans and track staff are his family, inviting them all to his place July 18 to hang out and watch the show.
And he means every word of it.
When Batycki read a recent story about Eddie Gossage, the promoter at Texas Motor Speedway and the successor to H. A. "Humpy" Wheeler’s throne as the self-styled P. T. Barnum of NASCAR, he smiled. He has worked with Gossage in the past and acknowledges Eddie as a powerful force within the sport and that the promotional work he is doing helps sell racing to the masses.
Batycki does, however, have issue with Gossage’s statement that he is the "only" promoter left in the sport and that everyone is just a "track operator."
"That’s Eddie being Eddie," Batycki said. "It’s not a façade; he lives and breathes this sport and knows he has a great product to share and wants everyone to feel how he does about racing."
But so does Batycki.
Going to area dirt tracks isn’t something the former vice president at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, N.C., and Richard Childress Racing does a couple times a year; he does it a couple times a weekend. Every weekend. His resume gives him cred with sponsors and media, but his education in the sport as an announcer at short tracks all over the South give him credence in the eyes of the most important people in motorsports: the fans.
"Guys like Frank Wilson, Steve Earwood, Bob Harmon, Jim Turner, and Humpy, taught me a lot along the way. It’s important to remember where we all came from," Batycki said. "We were all in the stands once, watching the cars go by and cheering for our driver. A lot of people in our sport forget that joy and take our fans for granted. We can’t. Not now, not ever.
"We love the sport of racing. For us, it’s not an act. It’s who we are. We support the local tracks, just like the people who pay admission to go to Gateway because at the end of the day, we’re fans just like them."
So every weekend, they convass the Midwest, Batycki and his oval-track apostles, spreading the word, not just of Gateway, but of racing. Of the pure joy of seeing cars whiz by at incredible speeds, of the smells of rubber and racing fuel, of getting that brief moment with their favorite driver. For Batycki, it’s not his job, it’s his passion.
He wouldn’t have it any other way.
Wearing a Carhartt jacket, blue jeans, and a Gateway International Raceway ball cap, he is at Highland Speedway, a dirt track near GIR, the multi-purpose motorsports facility where he has been the vice president and general manager since December, 2006. He talks to anyone and everyone, be they fans or racers or track staff. He preaches the power of racing with the fervor of a travelling minister, spreading the gospel of speed.
He talks about racers they know, like Illinois native Justin Allgaier, and how he got his start on dirt tracks just like Highland’s and how they can see their hometown favorite at Gateway for the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 in his #12 Penske Racing Dodge. He talks about the unity of racing, about how the sport is most successful when everyone is doing well, not just one facility. He talks about how racers and fans and track staff are his family, inviting them all to his place July 18 to hang out and watch the show.
And he means every word of it.
When Batycki read a recent story about Eddie Gossage, the promoter at Texas Motor Speedway and the successor to H. A. "Humpy" Wheeler’s throne as the self-styled P. T. Barnum of NASCAR, he smiled. He has worked with Gossage in the past and acknowledges Eddie as a powerful force within the sport and that the promotional work he is doing helps sell racing to the masses.
Batycki does, however, have issue with Gossage’s statement that he is the "only" promoter left in the sport and that everyone is just a "track operator."
"That’s Eddie being Eddie," Batycki said. "It’s not a façade; he lives and breathes this sport and knows he has a great product to share and wants everyone to feel how he does about racing."
But so does Batycki.
Going to area dirt tracks isn’t something the former vice president at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, N.C., and Richard Childress Racing does a couple times a year; he does it a couple times a weekend. Every weekend. His resume gives him cred with sponsors and media, but his education in the sport as an announcer at short tracks all over the South give him credence in the eyes of the most important people in motorsports: the fans.
"Guys like Frank Wilson, Steve Earwood, Bob Harmon, Jim Turner, and Humpy, taught me a lot along the way. It’s important to remember where we all came from," Batycki said. "We were all in the stands once, watching the cars go by and cheering for our driver. A lot of people in our sport forget that joy and take our fans for granted. We can’t. Not now, not ever.
"We love the sport of racing. For us, it’s not an act. It’s who we are. We support the local tracks, just like the people who pay admission to go to Gateway because at the end of the day, we’re fans just like them."
So every weekend, they convass the Midwest, Batycki and his oval-track apostles, spreading the word, not just of Gateway, but of racing. Of the pure joy of seeing cars whiz by at incredible speeds, of the smells of rubber and racing fuel, of getting that brief moment with their favorite driver. For Batycki, it’s not his job, it’s his passion.
He wouldn’t have it any other way.
