Please Help!!! Kankakee Speedway

Now for the cost of running the place.

The fixed expenses for rent, fuel, help, garbage, internet, advertising, porta johns, electric, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, propane, miscellaneous repairs to equipment which is weekly cause my stuff is old costs $8500 per week and the normal weekly purse is just short of $14,000 which totals $22,500.

That’s a total loss of $6500 for the night.

Now I’m not crying about losing money. I am simply letting everyone know that I need the racing community to step up and help get people to the race track. It is very important to try immediately so we can keep the race track going beyond the 2024 season.

I have had lots of people say where does all the sponsorship money go. Let me explain. Every special race at the track that pays more than a normal purse comes from the sponsor money. Also I have increased the purses all three years that I have been here and we also have a nice banquet with trophies and point fund money that costs us roughly $20,000 each year. So basically I give every penny of the sponsorship back to the racers and we don’t keep any.

I personally have invested well over $250,000 of my money to keep this place going. I don’t have an exact number because I really don’t want to know lol. Again I am not crying. My wife, son and father have all donated so much time and money to this place without receiving anything in return. I haven’t taken one dollar from the place since I took it over in 2022.

Final words

I am a extremely busy person running multiple businesses and I am burned out. I am sure that I make several mistakes every week doing this but I know I am doing my best with what I have to work with. I will definitely finish out this season but at this time I don’t know the future plans after that. I am willing to talk to anyone that may be interested in taking over my role after this season. I would make someone a great deal on all the equipment just to help keep the place alive. I am not saying that I won’t continue after this season if no one comes forward but we need to get more fans, racers, and crew members at the speedway the rest of the year. It’s very hard to work all of these hours just to see very few show up and appreciate it. I know it was hot and that is why it was bad but there seems to be an excuse every week. Next week is friendship festival the following week is 4th of July weekend and so on. So basically there is always something going on that becomes the excuse why the people don’t show up.

Again thank you for all the people that have been supportive throughout the season.

I am not looking for a bunch of comments on how I can work harder. We are a race track that is a fairgrounds that I don’t own so I can’t rebuild bleachers or bathrooms ect. ect. My main goal was to keep a place open for all racers to race at entry level to professional. We don’t have enough seating capacity to have the great big shows like PDC at fairbury or world 100 at Eldora. So that won’t ever happen here.

All I am asking is for the racers to bring a friend or relative or simply make a post that you are racing and where. Also put your differences aside from the past and support this great little speedway.

Thank you Billy