Lake County Speedway – South Dakota

 

 

The first 430.

I didn’t begin writing my famous Trackchaser Reports until I had already seen about 430 tracks.  I saw my 430th lifetime track in the middle of the year 2000.  The Lake County Speedway was first visited in 1998.  It will forever be known as my 329th lifetime track.

 

 

 

I first went to the Lake County Speedway on Saturday night, May 30, 1998.  This trackchasing visit was part of a four-day, four-track effort.  On Thursday night I saw Joey Saldana win the feature at the Hartford Speedway in Hartford, South Dakota.  The next night I was in Minnesota seeing racing for the first time at the Murray County Raceway in Slayton, Minnesota.  Shawn Reed in the B93.7 won his feature race.  Then on Sunday night following my visit to Lake County I was in the grandstand for the races at the Worthington Speedway in Worthington, South Dakota.  Bryan Foote in the #69 won at Worthington.

 

 

I only saw 35 new tracks in 1998.  My trackchasing rank for the year was 8th.  By the end of the year I had just 358 lifetime tracks to my credit.  I ranked WAY DOWN the list of trackchasers in the lifetime standings.  Heck, I hadn’t even seen enough tracks to be an eligible trackchasing voter in 1998.

 

 

Jack Erdmann of Depere, Wisconsin saw more tracks than anyone else in 1998 with sixty-three.  Have you ever seen the list of trackchasing champions dating all the way back to 1969?  Here’s the link which can be found on my website.  To find it simply go to the top of my home page.  You will see the “Trackchasing” tab.  Behind that tab you’ll find the tab “Past Trackchasing Champs”.  Here’s the link to see that list right now:

 

 

Past Trackchasing Champs

 

 

 

The Lake County Speedway offered the track configuration that was and is my all-time favorite.  It was an oval.  It had a dirt surface.  Finally, it was small just a quarter-mile in length.  That’s right.  Give me a high-banked quarter-mile dirt oval and I will have the time of my life.  However, on the night I visited the Lake County Speedway the weather was not my friend.  It was not South Dakota’s friend.  The program was rained out during the heat races.

 

 

I don’t get rained out very often.  That’s part of the plan.  When I have more than one choice, which I usually do, I’ll go where the rain chances are the least.  However, on this trip I was pretty well committed to trackchasing in South Dakota and Minnesota.  When the races were rained out I headed in the direction of tomorrow night’s track in Worthington, Minnesota.

 

 

Worthington is mainly east and a little bit south of the Lake County Speedway in Madison, South Dakota.  The driving distance is about 105 miles.  The area wasn’t just in store for a little bit of rain on this night.  There was some very bad weather about to hit.  I guess the South Dakotans and others recognized that when the Lake County announcer told everyone the program was canceled as a tornado had been reported in the area.  He didn’t have to tell everyone twice.  In less than five minutes the track’s grandstand was a ghost town.

 

 

I guess most folks lived nearby.  They had homes to go to.  I didn’t.  The best I could do was get in my rental car and head east.  The biggest and blackest cloud followed me for one hundred miles.  That cloud had to be about five miles square.  The black cloud wasn’t at a very high elevation either.  The radio announcer told me this storm was wreaking havoc on South Dakota.

 

 

I don’t often do this.  I have included a third party video of the massive F4 tornado that struck near the track.  You can view it by clicking on the “Video Plus” tab.

 

 

Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about the storm that hit Spencer, South Dakota just 50 miles south of the Lake County Speedway:

 

 

Tornado of 1998

On May 30, 1998, the most destructive and second deadliest tornado in South Dakota history—and the most intensely observed and analyzed—struck Spencer. It began as a large, dust-cloaked tornado NW of Farmer, South Dakota in Hanson County, concurrent with the demise of the “Fulton” tornado. Continuing toward the ESE, it struck several farmsteads before crossing the Hanson/McCook County line a half mile WNW of Spencer. At this time, the tornado was being observed by the OU Doppler on Wheels crew, whose mobile Doppler radar data showed up to 246 mph winds in the tornado a few tens of meters above ground level. The population of the town diminished soon after to less than half of what it was previous to the tornado, from 315 to 145 in April 1999.

 

 

So what has happened to the Lake County Speedway since that fateful night in 1998.  The 3/8 mile dirt oval race track closed down after the 2007 season due to the rising costs of doing business. It is seen here five years later as it deteriorates into the natural landscape. It was previously known as Interlakes Speedway.

 

 

Lake County Speedway litigaion

In the year 2000 the South Dakota Supreme Court considered a lawsuit against the track.  Here’s what happened.  This case arose from a personal injury accident at the Lake County Speedway, when a race car’s wheel detached, struck and injured Vernon Holzer .  The circuit court granted both defendants, Dakota Speedway, Inc. and K & K Insurance Group, Inc. summary judgment based on a pre-accident release signed by Holzer. 

 

 

Holzer was serving as a member of Bruce Bortnem’s pit crew on August 5, 1995, when an accident occurred during the ninth or tenth lap of the twelve-lap sportsmen’s stock car feature race.   The right wheel and tire broke away from a race car, became airborne, and flew over one hundred feet to where Holzer was standing inside the official pit area behind a wall consisting of concrete barricades.  He received severe injuries to the head, face and shoulder, and has been in a comatose condition since the date of the accident.   

 

 

Before entering the pit area of the racetrack on August 5, 1995, Holzer was requested by Speedway officials to sign a “Release and Waiver of Liability, Assumption of Risk and Indemnity Agreement.”  All individuals wishing to enter the pit area were required to pay an entry fee and sign the release form.   This document provided that the signees covenant not to sue the track owners, their insurers and others and release, waive, discharge them from all liability “for any and all loss or damage, and any claim or demands therefor on account of injury to the person or property or resulting in death of the undersigned arising out of or related to the events, whether caused by the negligence of the releasees or otherwise.”   This release was a condition to being allowed into any “restricted area,” such as the pit, and applied to anyone competing, officiating, observing, working for, or participating in races at the speedway.  

 

 

 

A book have even been written on the history of the Lake County Speedway.  It’s title is “Thunder over the Plains – The history of Lake County Speedway.  This is what the author had to say about the track.

 

 

MADISON, SD – 

 

While it’s been quiet here since the track closed in 2007, one man is trying to bring Lake County Speedway back to life with text and 460 pictures.

 

 

“It seemed a shame to let it drift into history without somebody recording what happened out here,” Pifer said.

 

 

So that’s exactly what Gale Pifer spent three years doing. He rounded up all the stories and photos he could get his hands on and laid it all down. It was a lot of hard work but Pifer calls it a labor of love. 

 

 

“Brings back a lot of memories and the exploits of a lot of characters out here,” Pifer said.

 

 

“There’s some stories that probably shouldn’t be told that are in the book but most of the people are understanding or have even died. So I can get away with telling some of the stories,” Pifer said.

 

 

And the book is full of them coming it at 510 pages long. Pifer, who worked at the track for much of its existence, could talk all day about the adventures that took place in Madison. He remembers how the community supported the 3/8 mile oval and how just about everybody, from cafe owners to farmers had a racecar. And then there was the dirt track itself…

 

 

“Madison was known for two things, a tree in the south corner, a volunteer tree that grew up and we didn’t cut it down and then the slough in the north end. If you got out of trouble in the north end and cleared the bank, you ended up getting a bath,” Pifer said.

 

 

The cost of running the track led to its demise in the long run. But with 580 books sold thanks in part to a great turnout at a local book signing, Lake County Speedway’s history will live on forever.

 

 

“I’d never dreamt there’d be that much interest. The book signing was for two hours and an hour and fifteen minutes into it we ran out of books,” Pifer said.

 

 

Sadly, although I didn’t full realize it on the one and only night I visited the Lake County Speedway, the track had a dark cloud over much of it’s existence.  I wish I had come to see the racing on another night.  Rest in Peace, Lake County Speedway.

 

 

 

You might have remembrances of the Lake County Speedway.  If so, please feel free to share in the comments section below.  If you have any photos from back in the day, send them to me at Ranlay@yahoo.com.  I’ll try to include them here.

 

 

 

Click on the link below to see the F4 tornado that hit Spencer, South Dakota just minutes after the races were rained out in Madison, South Dakota on May 30, 1998.

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