Full Throttle

Visitors to Jennerstown Speedway’s Web site this week were greeted by a stark one-line message in bold blue that read: “Notice: Jennerstown Speedway will be closed for the 2009 season.”

Al Minjock, who operates the “Thunder on the Mountain Driving Experience” at the track — and he stressed he’s still doing so — had advance warning.

“I found out in December,” Minjock said Tuesday.

That’s when he spoke with Joe Direnzo, who had leased and operated the track last year from owner Dave Wheeler of Somerset. Direnzo directed Minjock to Wheeler, who told him there would be no weekly racing shows this summer.

“Dave and I talked and we came to an agreement,” Minjock said. “I can still operate at the track because I’m providing my own insurance.”

Minjock’s driving experience business, which he also operates at Motordrome Speedway (Smithton Pa), provides individuals the chance to drive on a race track. But Minjock has no interest in trying to operate weekly programs at Jennerstown, a paved one-half mile oval.

“No, I’m not a promoter,” he said. “I don’t have the necessary capital to do it and do it correctly. You’re going to lose money your first year, no matter what.”

Stan Lasky, whose family formerly owned Jennerstown, currently leases Motordrome and puts on weekly shows. He was emphatic when asked about the possibility of taking over Jennerstown.

“No. I am a one-man band down here and it just wouldn’t work,” he said. “I think Jennerstown’s problem is it’s not a weekly race track. Neither my father nor I were never able to make that work. Now, it’s a great special events track, I think it could support six to eight big shows, but not in this economy.”

Lasky recalled his family had operated Jennerstown through 1999, then leased it to another group, before selling in 2001. Current owner Dave Wheeler purchased it in 2003.

“I know Dave is busy with his business and doesn’t have the time to run the track himself,” Lasky said.

The track currently is for sale.

About Jennerstown Speedway: Constructed in the late 1920’s as a flat half-mile dirt oval, the Jenners Fairgrounds, as the speedway was then known, played host to ‘big car’ racing (forerunners to the sprint cars of today) during the 1930’s. Among the leading local drivers of that era were Butch Gardner and the ‘Pennsylvania coal miner’, Mike (Little) Serokman.

Following World War II a smaller, lighted quarter-mile dirt oval was built inside the larger track in 1953. Laird Brunner became the first weekly promoter to present stock car racing, which had replaced the midgets as the post-war entertainment craze sweeping the nation. During this period the original half-mile track was abandoned.

Brunner was followed by the successful promotional team of Carmen Amica/Dick Basserman, who guided the speedway during the early 1960’s. Other promoters during the quarter mile era included: Lou Smith and George Kittey. The half-mile oval was rebuilt in the mid-1960’s, but was quickly closed again due to poor track conditions.

Drivers such as Fuzzy Rubritz, Blackie Watt, Jimmy Burns, Joe Viglione and Johnny Grum thrilled motorsports enthusiasts on the tight Jennerstown bullring, which featured outlaw and Penn Western Racing Association-sanctioned contests.

A major modernization project took place in 1967 when local businessmen John Frambaugh, Sam Turrillo, Bill Philson, John Philson, Doc Whiney, Harry Horne and Piney Lasky purchased the grounds and completely rebuilt the track into one of the fastest half-mile dirt ovals in the nation. For the next 20-seasons Jennerstown was known for its winged open wheel sprint car and dirt late model action.

Names like Lou Blaney, Milt Miller, Bobby Marhefka, Turk Burkett, Jim Nave and Gary Martz were in the headlines.

Over the course of time Lasky became the sole owner of the facility, and in 1987 made the decision to move Jennerstown to the next level by paving the track and bringing asphalt racing back to Western PA for the first time since the famed Heidelberg Raceway was sold for development in 1973.

Lasky also upgraded the grandstand and concession areas, affiliated the track with NASCAR, and brought major sanctioned events to the Somerset County speedplant. Lasky died unexpectedly in 1994, passing the torch to his son, Stanley Jr., who ran the operation for the next five seasons, before selling to former speedway late model champion Steve Peles and Hooters Restaurants founder, Bob Brooks, in 2000.

After three seasons at the helm, Peles and Brooks sold the track to Dave Wheeler, who initiated an immediate upgrade in operations. Wheeler repaved the oval in 2004 with a $350,000 polymer-based racing surface. Future plans call for improvements to the infield/pit area, along with new concession buildings and rest rooms on the spectator side.