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| GIR'S Batycki: Eddie Gossage Not Alone |
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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.