The promoters of the Outlaw Enduro Series knew rain was coming for Saturday of their two-day Tim Pauch Memorial show. Inclement weather was forecasted for the rain date of Sunday, too. So, on the Wednesday prior to the race, the promoters elected to move the events to Friday at Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania.
“The Tim Pauch Memorial rained out last year, and we weren’t going to let the forecast ruin the event two years in a row,” said Joanne Bailey, Outlaw Enduro Series co-promoter with Dave Dissinger. “When we got the forecast, we went on social media and promoted the show would be one day — Friday — which had a perfect forecast for racing.”
They would have to contend with a 11:45 p.m. curfew and a 7 p.m. start time for Friday. The promoters reduced the number of features to 12, plus warm-ups, two practice sessions, and an on-track trick-or-treat. The features weren’t short ones, either. The big car enduro and small car enduro went 105 laps each. Despite that, they got everything in, except the final 15-lap vintage mechanics race.
Were the weather forecasters correct?
“Did the rain come on Saturday — it poured and poured,” Bailey said. “Then, on Sunday, it rained again.”
How did the racers respond to the one-day show? Did they come?
“The pits at Grandview Speedway hold 90 cars,” said Bailey. “We were parking them in the track’s parking lot on Friday. We had 129 cars, 148 entries — some raced in two divisions.”
And the fans came, too, with Dissinger and Bailey handing more than 100 trick-or-treat bags to children. Bicycles were also given away by the Reading Fairgrounds Racing Historical Society.
“I don’t know why more tracks have events where the kids want to come to the races and drag the parents along,” Dissinger said. “It’s good for racing, good for the families, and good for the drivers.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
