BEATRICE - Beatrice Speedway is under new leadership. Tommy Denton, a Beatrice native who came to Nebraska from Denver in the 1980’s, is now taking over at the track he’s known for so many years as Director of Competition and Promoter.

“It’s great,” Denton said. “This is my home track. I’ve ben coming here since I was a little kid and every Friday and Saturday night for the last 42 years.”

Denton has held prior Beatrice Speedway positions of flagger, track announcer, and most recently infield pit announcer. He also serves as the Director of the Beatrice Speedway Hall of Fame, a role he started in 2011. In a press release from Beatrice Speedway, the track expressed their excitement in the knowledge Denton brings to the track. Denton talked about how he sees his own experience in racing, helping him in his new role.

“I’ve seen what works and I’ve seen what doesn’t work,” Denton said. “I’ve seen great times and bad times…. Hopefully with my experience, and having seen it all, I hope I can help it a bit.”

The IMCA dirt track that sits on the Gage County Fairgrounds has high bleachers, multiple stories tall, but they aren’t always full. Denton noted Beatrice Speedway had an approximate regular season attendance of 432 last season - a number he would like increased.

“I’d like to see the crowd get back up,” Denton said. “Get the crowd back into it. Get them in the evening show. Have some giveaways, some certain specials, like a free hot dog night, just to get the crowd back out there again.”

One of the biggest changes, or in this case additions, Denton plans to bring is an adjusted schedule with certain new wrinkles. One of those, is adding Super Late Models on June 16th as well as once-a-month races of the RaceSaver 305 Sprint Cars. Denton says, this will result in some tweaking of the tracks normal IMCA schedule.

“Each class will have a night off during the season,” Denton said. “We have 16 nights lined up, so everyone should be able to run 15 nights, barring any rain outs. The final night championship will be August 25, Octoberfest will be the 11-13 of October, and I have leased the track September 29, we’ll have the 30 sprint cars and the Nebraska 360’s.”

A number of drivers had recently expressed concern for track conditions. Denton said one of the main things he plans to tend to, is track drainage.

“Need to raise turns 1-2 a bit to get the drains back to where they actually drain,” Denton said. “Right now, the drains are higher than the infield where the drain are sitting at and it just doesn’t drain.

It may seem like we still have the dead of winter ahead of us, while that may be true, Denton expressed the need to work quickly, as the IMCA Spring Nationals are just over two months away, set for March 8-10.