Jamie Godbee, Amanda Godbee, and Danny Carswell purchased Penton Raceway around this time last year. After a year of making improvements, they are ready to reopen the Lafayette, Alabama, dirt oval.
“The track has a concave progression, from 7° to 21°, much like the shape of an old-style ashtray,” Jamie Godbee said. “We widened the track from 60′ to 85′, and covered it with 18″ of new red dirt, with a high percentage of clay.”
Godbee said much of the work they did came as the result of feedback they received.
“We will do what is necessary to make Penton Raceway a first-class facility,” said Godbee. “We’ve put in a transponder loop. We’re building an interior wall. We listened to fans and racers who told us lighting was of major concern on both sides of the track.”
To fix the lighting, Godbee and his team added LED lights to illuminate the track as well as the pits and parking lot. They also installed new appliances and fixtures in the concessions and built a new scoring booth.
The pit area often flooded, too, causing canceling of shows. To remedy that, they added more than 400 feet of storm drainage.
Godbee added that the track installed a late model atop of its billboard on County Road 108. He looks to also add a digital sign on the grounds that can be used as a screen to host movies for the community.
“The track was using 60 acres,” Godbee said. “We have since cleared an additional 18 acres and have another 25 acres in pasture that can be used for future expansion.”
Godbee said the track will work with nearby Senoia Raceway in Georgia.
“Senoia Raceway is my home track, and I’ll continue to race there, but I won’t at Penton Raceway,” said Godbee. “We’ll work with Senoia Raceway on scheduling. Rules will be in line with the area tracks. We are part of a race community — and I don’t want to split drivers and fans up because of scheduling or rules.”
Penton Raceway will schedule racing on Fridays, with 604 late models, 602 late models, modifieds, hobby stocks, bombers, mini stocks, and front-wheel-drives on the docket.
“Our family loves racing,” Godbee said. “If the track can break even, we will keep the doors open. Our other businesses pay their own way. We simply love racing and want to give back to the racing community. We’ll put 85% of any profits we make back into the track. I want it to be a racing showplace for the state of Alabama.”
The complete schedule and set of rules for the track will be announced on Monday on its website at raceatpenton.com.
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.
