Why go somewhere tropical for spring break when you got your own paradise? Jackson County Speedway owners Brandon and Brittany Conkel brought their four sons to the track to prepare it for the new year.
“Jackson County Speedway is a family-operated track — it’s the only way to operate a racetrack these days,” Brandon said. “It’s a family sport, and for their love of the sport our family members will work at the track. It beats having employees to pay.”
Bowen, 7, and Baylor, 4, rolled a fresh coat of red paint on the grandstand. Their parents rewarded them with play time, breaking out a toy excavator, grader and dump trucks on a pile of clay removed from the infield after a washout.
Bhodi, just 7 months old, rode with her father on the bulldozer as he moved the infield clay to smooth away the ruts in the track. Grandfather Brian helped, too, operating a skid steer.
Meanwhile Bryson, 14, cleaned the ticket booth, where he and his aunt work on race nights.
To say the track is a labor of love may be an understatement. Four years ago, on Valentine’s Day, Brandon told Brittany he had a special present for her. He bought the speedway.
“At first, she wasn’t impressed with the gift I got her,” Brandon said. “She soon warmed up to the idea of being a speedway owner.”
The dirt oval had been shut down for five years, operating as a site for auto parts recycling. Brandon bought it to prove a point.
“I’m just a dumb sprint car driver who bought a racetrack that everyone said would never open again,” Brandon said. “I knew we were going to make this track be successful from the start.”
Reviving a track dormant for that long required some heavy lifting.
“We had to replace everything — bleachers, fencing, electric, and the wall,” Brandon said. “It was a ton of work. I spent six months working 16 hours a day to open JCS.”
JCS runs every other Friday night throughout the summer. While the Conkels own the track, Anthony Gaskins promotes it. Brittany helps with marketing. Armed with fliers and an active social media presence, the Conkels said they’ve grown the numbers of spectators and cars over the course of four years. It’s been a long road to recovering their investment, but they said there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
“The first year we operated at a loss, having invested $120,000 in repair and operation of JCS,” Brandon said. “The second year, the loss was $50,000. Last season we made a $650 profit. It amounts to us working for free, but I’m ok with that because we have a place to race and the drivers are having fun.”
Nevertheless, racing a sprint car, running a business and owning a racetrack takes a toll.
“I’m 38 years old and saw my first gray hair the other day,” Brandon said. “I went straight to the barber and got a haircut.”
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.
