Dedicated to Racing

by Marti Attoun

With a thundering burst of horsepower, sprint car driver Ray Seemann whips around the oval track in Jetmore, Kan., churning up clouds of dust. With each lap, he rips another mud-splattered plastic strip from his visor so he can see the dirt course ahead.

The fast-paced mudslinging is a source of weekend entertainment and hometown pride in Jetmore (pop. 903), a town devoted to carrying on a racing tradition that took off in the 1940s at fairgrounds across Kansas.

"We all grew up with a dirt track," says Seemann, 32, of Jetmore, who thrills to the challenge of driving on an ever-changing dirt surface. "Going fast and driving to win—that's the fun."

Come Saturday nights, faithful fans pack the Jetmore Motorplex, which was built in 2001 by Seemann and a group of five other investors with a lot of help from the community. The town donated 30 acres of an abandoned World War II training airfield for the three-eighths-mile dirt track, and volunteers helped build concession stands, restrooms, fences and the 2,800-seat grandstand.

"We had 40 to 50 people out here, some working every day," says Charles Leet, track president, recalling how the $154,000 grandstand took two months to assemble.

Two years ago, owners struggled to keep the track open after paying for a turn lane to the motorplex entrance along U.S. Highway 283 south of town. Thirty-two dirt track supporters came to the rescue, kicking in $1,000 each to continue the weekend fun.

"None of us expects to make any money," Seemann says. "We're just hoping it'll make enough to pay its own bills and stay open. Racing gets people together."

By 4 p.m. every Saturday from April to October, drivers and pit crews begin unloading their prized racecars—super stocks, modifieds, bombers, cruisers and sprints. They may be competitors, but the atmosphere is as festive as a family reunion.

"Most will go out of their way to help you get going," Leet says, "then they'll murder you on the track."

Fans stake out their regular spots in the bleachers to root for their favorite drivers. The Bowman family from nearby Kinsley (pop. 1,658) settles in a middle section where 85-year-old grandmother Rosaline Schaller leads the family cheers. Her grandsons, Darren, 31, and Jim Bob, 39, race weekly in the sprint and super stock divisions. "We live for Saturdays," declares their mother, Joyce.

At 7 p.m., the crowd stands silently for the national anthem in the evening's only quiet moments before volunteer pace truck driver Tobi Huish of Jetmore leads the first group of eight lightweight sprint cars onto the track. Her husband, Ron, is a volunteer flagman and their daughters, Stacie, 13, and Meagan, 15, sell raffle tickets that benefit the track. Volunteers water, grade and pack the track before each week's races.

In nonstop action, each class of cars runs practice laps, then qualifying laps, and eventually the evening's feature races where first-place finishers take home $300. In Jetmore, though, even the losers in the feature races take home cash.

"The guy who doesn't finish really needs the money," Leet explains. "It may just be enough for 10 or 20 gallons of gas."

Driver Adam Schrag, 30, of Hutchinson (pop. 40,787), doesn't expect to make money racing at Jetmore; he simply enjoys the thrills of the high-banked track where speeds on the straightways can reach 100 mph.

The drivers aren't big-name professionals, but they're local celebrities as they stand under the lights on the old World War II runway signing autographs until midnight. Dalton Konrade, 12, and his little brother, Wilson, 4, from Kinsley, make the rounds collecting signed photographs of each driver. So does Byrum Bittel, 9, of nearby Spearville (pop. 813), who has muscular dystrophy and rolls his wheelchair close to Darren Bowman's winning red sprint car.

One of the bystanders lifts Byrum into the driver's seat and Darren hands over his helmet. Byrum's grin says it all. He's just one more loyal fan enjoying the thrill of Jetmore's dirt track on a Saturday night.

Visit www.jetmoremotorplex.com or call (620) 357-8886 for more information.

Marti Attoun is a Contributing Editor with American Profile.

first appeared: 4/23/2006