NASCAR Grassroots Racing Advancing Into The Future

The importance, and popularity, of NASCAR’s regional tracks once seemingly ebbed and flowed. As the sport rose to meteoric heights in the early part of the 21^st Century many felt the local short tracks around the country were left behind. The tracks that were once the breeding grounds for NASCAR’s future stars seemed to be going the way of newspapers; unread, and unwanted. A piece of history being lost.

That’s all changed in recent years however as NASCAR has not only embraced its history, it now actively promotes it. And that includes local short track racing.

America’s short tracks never really went away. NASCAR’s weekly sanctioned racing series has been around since 1982. It’s been known as the Whelen All-American Series, Winston Racing Series, and the Dodge Weekly Series throughout the years. In 2020 Advance Auto Parts
AAP
took over naming rights for the series and grassroots racing is becoming more popular than ever.

The series currently races on 53 tracks spread across 25 states and 4 Canadian provinces, with drivers able to gain competition points at any of those NASCAR-sanctioned tracks. The inclusion of both asphalt and dirt tracks allows for a variety of cars to be raced weekly.

And those local short tracks are not just
just
benefiting from the new attention. The series title sponsor Advance Auto is giving the tracks a chance to get some cold, hard, and much needed, cash.

In its first year as the series sponsor, Advance launched its My Track Challenge, a contest that gives tracks in the series a chance to promote themselves to the local community. It’s well worth the time and effort for the track; the payoff is a $50,000 check from Advance Auto Parts to the winning track.

Jeff Striegle is known to many NASCAR fans from his work as a booth announcer for the Motor Racing Network, MRN. But when he’s not in the booth calling races, he’s also known as something else: the general manager of Berlin Raceway in Marne, Michigan a 7/16-mile paved oval that opened in 1951. It’s one of the tracks on the NASCAR Weekly Series. Running the track was a natural fit for Striegle, who grew up watching races there, and ran a race team that competed at Berlin for over a decade.

His first job at the track was as the PA announcer. Striegle said he wanted to be involved in the sport so he went to the track and found out they needed someone to call the races there.

“The timing was perfect because the guy that had been there – true story – for 50 years was retiring,” he said laughing.

That led him to making an audition tape for MRN. Once he landed that role, he bought a race team and started competing at Berlin. The track continued to try and get him to work for them, but Striegle resisted. After retiring from another full-time job, and left with only the MRN role, the track reached out with another role at the track.

“Middle of the winter, they called again,” he said. “I was bored. And I said, ‘yes, I’ll go ahead and do this.’

“Really, one thing led to another that led to another, and timing was perfect. So I accepted the opportunity and now I am currently into my third year.”

Berlin Raceway won the first My Track Challenge. It was something that Berlin’s then new GM never thought his racetrack had a chance at.

“When I first heard about what they were doing it caught me so off guard,” Striegle said. “Nobody is doing anything like that in this industry, especially as it pertains to a short track. So, when Advanced Auto Parts introduced their program, you know, we looked at it and I tried to figure out; ‘okay, man, this is too good to be true.’

“An opportunity for us to be considered among the best NASCAR Advanced Auto Parts weekly series tracks in the nation? You know, I had no idea whether we would win it, place in it, be overlooked. I had no idea, but I knew that when they released that two years ago, this was something that we had to be involved in. We jumped in with both feet, promoted and did everything.”

Striegle and his team put all their effort into it. And that effort paid off as Berlin Raceway became the winner of the first Advance My Track Challenge and the $50,000 that went with it.

“Winning the prize was a shock,” Striegle said. “I mean, I had no idea that we would win it.

“When we got the phone call and it came from Ryan Blaney that we had won, I just paused. I didn’t even know what to say. Our team was gathered around, we knew we were going to be receiving a phone call, but we didn’t know what the phone call was going to be. We didn’t know if they were going to say, thanks for participating, you did not win. Obviously, the goal was to hear from Ryan Blaney that we did win. And that’s exactly what he told us. You know, it was something I took a lot of pride in.”

Penske Racing driver Ryan Blaney is a third-generation racer following in the footsteps of his grandfather Lou, and father David. All got their starts on short tracks, and the family even co-owns Sharon Speedway in Hartford Ohio. He also has sponsorship from Advance Auto Parts for his team.

“I’ve had the privilege of being with a lot of great partners over the years,” Blaney said. “Advance Auto Parts has been absolutely unbelievable building on our relationship over the last handful of years.”

As part of the sponsorship Advance Auto has the Home Tracks Highlights program that features different weekly series tracks on the Blaney’s No. 12 Ford each week. This year each week the car will also have a different Weekly Series driver champion’s name on it. With a background in short tracks, Blaney has gone all-in on the latest Advance promotion.

“That’s really cool,” Blaney said. “I hope they also enjoy being on our race car.”

“You know, they may be short tracks,” he added. “But these things are life to these men and women who do this every single week and who put all their time and money and effort into going to their prospective racetracks week in and week out and competing for championships.

“Hopefully it makes them feel like, it’s really cool that it’s on a larger scale than what they think maybe you know, that hey, it’s featured on a Cup car… we’re showing appreciation on the great job that you guys have done the previous year to win the championship and your hard work doesn’t go unnoticed.”

For Advance Auto Parts getting when looking at a NASCAR sponsorship, beyond becoming the ‘official auto parts retailer of NASCAR’, throwing their support behind the weekly series made the most sense.

“Racing fans are our core customers and they are key followers of local grassroots racing,” Advance Auto’s chief marketing officer Jason McDonell said. “They enjoy going to their local Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series track on Saturday night and working on their family vehicles or project cars on Sunday. We even hear from Weekly Series drivers who shop at Advance. They come to us for parts for their race cars, whether they race late models, street stocks or other cars.”

And having NASCAR Weekly Series tracks all over the country is a big plus.

“There is also a strong correlation between our Advance store footprint and the tracks that make up the Weekly Series. More than 40 of these tracks have at least one Advance 20 miles away. Short tracks are where our customers are. There is an undeniable connection between Advance, race fans and grassroots racers, and it makes all the sense in the world for us to be in this space. “

McDonell said the idea for the challenge was born out of the simple question: what could they do to advance grassroots racing? Their solution was to create a program that “benefitted NASCAR’s Home Tracks while giving back to these local communities on a sport they are passionate about.”

The company has been very pleased with the results.

“We love how this program immediately resonated with fans, participating tracks and the sport,” McDonell said. “Advance My Track Challenge empowers fans, drivers and entire communities to rally behind their hometown track to help them win this $50,000 prize.

“And with the prize money, these teams can reinvest in their facilities and continue to enhance the experience for fans. Winning gives these tracks the opportunity to do things they’ve always dreamed of but didn’t necessarily have the funds to go out and make happen. It is a real difference maker
maker
for these tracks, many of which are family owned and operated.”

Once a track wins the Challenge, they aren’t eligible to compete again. However, tracks, like Berlin Raceway are still benefiting from the promotion in recent years NASCAR has given to grassroots racing; promotion that has been noticeable.

“There was a time when we knew that a Tony Stewart or a Jeff Gordon or Ryan Newman may show up at your racetrack and race, then it disappeared, that dried up,” Striegle said. “You really didn’t see any of the NASCAR drivers involved in the short tracks. Now all of a sudden, within the last handful of years, we’re seeing that not only rebound, but even bigger and better than what it was prior.

“It’s not a surprise to see a Chase Elliott, a Kyle Larson, a Kyle Busch, just using those three as an example, show up and race at your short track, wherever that short track might be. I applaud NASCAR for trying to get the ball moving, and I certainly applaud the drivers that are willing to jump into a super late model, jump into a sprint car, whatever that car of choice might be, and go and race against the local competitors on a weekly basis.”

As the winner of the first My Track Challenge, Striegle has some advice to his fellow short track operators around the country.

“I would recommend that the tracks take it very seriously,” he said. “That they use the best promotion, that they know how they want to put their track in the best light that they possibly can; show people what the track actually is, show people what the money, if they were to win it, would be used for. Share the history of the track and talk about what the track is going to be doing in the future. That’s what we did. It paid off and we won.”

Regardless of a contest, or promotion Striegle echoes the same message all the short track operators around the country have; they hope fans will care enough to take some time to come see the future of NASCAR.

“When you go to a local short track, you may be looking at the next NASCAR Cup series champion,” he said. “There’s a lot of truth to that because every one of the drivers that we watch that race at the NASCAR level, Truck, Xfinity or Cup Series came from the short tracks around the country.

“When you show up at Jennerstown or Berlin, Langley, you are seeing not only very, very competitive racing from veterans that have been racing there for years and years, but are also seeing the young, very talented individuals that ultimately may win a track championship at their local track and then get that opportunity to advance to the ARCA Menard series that would advance to the Craftsman Truck series, the NASCAR level, to the Xfinity Series, and continue to work their way all the way up to the Cup Series.”

But short tracks aren’t just a feeder series, they are important in more ways that just that.

“It is a great place where a lot of people get their starts or people who have been there for decades just love the tracks and love the cars that they’re running,” Ryan Blaney said. “That’s how these things are going to survive; that’s how motorsports survives. If we can support the local short tracks and I think if you love racing in general, you should definitely go check it out because that’s how everything’s going to keep moving forward.”

The voting for the third-annual Advance My Track Challenge is underway and runs through May 15.