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It was in mid-April 1974 that Orlando SpeedWorld’s oval race track started\u00a0operation and Friday night’s season opener will mark the beginning of the 40th\u00a0anniversary celebration for the three-eighths-mile facility that has hosted\u00a0weekly racing events, major sanctioned races from the likes of USAC, All-Pro,\u00a0Florida Pro Series and many more plus the ever-popular Crash-A-Rama shows.<\/p>\n
The adjacent drag strip began operating ten years earlier, in 1964, and both\u00a0were initially built and owned by Billy Herndon before being purchased by\u00a0Clyde Hart in late-1987. Clyde’s son Robert continued to operate the facility\u00a0until last year when Ozzy Moya took over the reigns. \u00a0The first race held on the oval track was a Limited Sportsman event won by the\u00a0late Ed Meredith in a 1965 Chevy Chevelle. The big race on opening day was\u00a0for Late Model stock cars and was won by the late Gene Johnson of Fort Pierce.<\/p>\n
Johnson’s stepson, Doc McKinney, still competes at SpeedWorld to this day. \u00a0After a somewhat dismal 2013 plagued by some unforeseen management issues and\u00a0terrible weather, SpeedWorld is bouncing back with a vengeance this year. \u00a0Moya has named Donnie Vivier as General Manager and he will oversee day-to-day\u00a0operations of the track as well as helping promote the drag strip. Vivier\u00a0recently operated the highly successful Central Florida Racing Complex in\u00a0South Orlando. CFRC opened its doors in 2009 as the Central Florida Road\u00a0Course, and as it evolved, it developed into an autocross and drifting course\u00a0as well as a one-eighth-mile drag strip. Before long, it was one of the most\u00a0popular racing facilities in the State of Florida. But when Orange County\u00a0forced the dragstrip to be shut down in 2012, CFRC’s main source of revenue\u00a0was taken away from them. They attempted to keep afloat by continuing to host\u00a0autocross and drifting events, including sanctioned events by the national\u00a0drifting series Xtreme Drift Circuit. But it wasn’t enough, and the only\u00a0full-fledged racing facility to ever form within Orlando’s city limits had to\u00a0close. Interestingly, the CFRC facility provided young people with an\u00a0organized facility to allow them to do their racing there and not on the\u00a0streets. Apparently Orange County did not feel that was all that important.<\/p>\n
Vivier now brings his expertise to SpeedWorld. \u00a0Along with stock car racing this year, Orlando SpeedWorld’s oval track is now\u00a0beginning to host organized drifting events and many of CFRC’s former drag\u00a0racing events are now being hosted by SpeedWorld’s drag strip which plans its\u00a0busiest year ever in 2014. \u00a0To make sure the stock car racing program gets back on its feet, Butch Carr,\u00a0Sr. has been brought on as track promoter. Carr has plenty of experience at\u00a0the track starting as a competitor in Mini-Stocks back in the early-1980s. He\u00a0has been helping to promote SpeedWorld over the past few years but has now\u00a0taken on the job full-time. “What we are going to do is get back to some\u00a0grass roots racing,” says Carr. “We are going to try and build up our lower\u00a0divisions, attract new drivers, and get the pit area filled up again. Once we\u00a0start putting on a quality entertaining show, then we can start working to\u00a0attract more fans to sit in the stands. It won’t happen overnight, but with\u00a0the support of the race teams and a little bit of sponsorship, we can get the\u00a0old girl back operating like she should be,” he said.<\/p>\n
This Friday night will feature the Pro Trucks in action along with the Super\u00a0Stocks, Legend Cars, Strictly Stocks, and Four Cylinder Stocks. Several\u00a0sponsors have already put up a total of $225 for the Strictly\/Four Cylinder\u00a0Stocks to race for. Although recent bad weather has put several “sprucing up”\u00a0projects behind including some repainting and re-paving of portions of the pit\u00a0area, the track is ready to go. Work on fixing the track lighting has also\u00a0been slowed by the weather but Sunbelt Rentals has come on board as a sponsor\u00a0and has provided SpeedWorld with extra lights for opening night.<\/p>\n
Pit gates open Friday afternoon at 4 pm and grandstand gates open at 5 pm. \u00a0Racing starts at 8 pm. Adult grandstand admission remains at $12 with seniors\u00a065 and older and military personnel with valid ID being admitted for $10. All\u00a0kids aged 11 and under get in free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was in mid-April 1974 that Orlando SpeedWorld’s oval race track started\u00a0operation and Friday night’s season opener will mark the beginning of the 40th\u00a0anniversary celebration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,3,18,61,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-front-page-news","category-orlando-speedworld","category-racing-news","category-upcoming-events"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21113,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21110\/revisions\/21113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}