The grandstands honestly will need to be re-built completely. People that go out to the races now cannot sit in the stands due to safety (either snakes or sink holes)

The track a couple years ago was sold. One of the owners that now owns it, is the guy that owns Artic Wolf. He's done a tremendous job of taking care of the current state of the facility. He's trying to get word out about the facility to get people to come back to it, but its a slow process. The track does sponsor a professional race team, not NASCAR or IRL, but a Mazda based open wheel series. The team is based in College Station.

Basically it boils down to the owner of the track back then( may be the same owner now) wouldn't fork over the cash for improvements and to pay for the big races(or cheated people out of money). From what I understand it is (and was) a superspeedway. Only like 7 or 8 in the US. Should have been able to thrive as a popular racetrack. It has a central location for Texas and would have drawn the crowds.

I think this may be a prime example of greed and the negative consequences that come with it.

If the races would have kept coming, Highway 6 might be some sort of suoer highway now, and the town would have much more revenue from tourist and racegoers. If NASCAR was still coming here no telling what that part of town would be like. The amount of traffic SH6 can hold doesn't matter now, things might have been different if we had something big to support.

[This message has been edited by bcs_tx_guy (edited 8/1/2009 12:55a).]

Funny to hear the story about the fire at a Willie Nelson concert at the speedway back in the day. Wasn't there also a huge grassfire at the Willie concert there just a couple years ago???

Yes, there was. Those who do not remember the bitter lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them.

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I think this may be a prime example of greed and the negative consequences that come with it.

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The owner wasn't greedy, he just had zero vision. You have to spend money to make money and he didn't get the memo.

The location of the track is and was perfect for the reasons stated in those newspaper clippings. Access was the problem. Talladega is in the boonies but has decent access to Interstate 20.

I doubt you'll see the speedway demolished to build something else anytime soon because the cost to tear it down and remove the track and tunnels would be off the charts. Maybe 50 years from now.

My prediction: It will be a ghost town within 10 years when the weather finally takes its toll on the pavement surface and nobody will be able to practice there.

I hate to speak ill of the dead, but in my opinion, the reason for the demise of TWS was the arrogance and mis-management and poor marketing by it's owner at the time, the now late Dick Canole and his team.

I have seen people here write about the grandstands. The fact is that several years ago the grandstands were deemed unsafe by professional engineering surveys and Canole refused to own up to it, much less repair it. The reports said there were several large cave-like pockets under the stands that compromised their sturdiness.

On several occasions, those grandstands were close to full even though engineers had reported them so unsafe, that they could have slid down onto the track and brought the pressbox down with them. Fortunately, such a tragedy never happened.

The Eagle ran a front page story about all this about 15 years ago and (some may recall) Lalapalooza was scheduled to come there and then cancelled after that story came out.

TWS is under new capable ownership now and could still make a comeback.

This post may be deleted, I suppose, but everything I've written is fact... trust me.

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arrogance and mis-management and poor marketing by it's owner at the time, the now late Dick Canole and his team.

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I think you are adding a little opinion to your evaluation. Dick was one owner but there were two others in the Philadelphia area.

You are pretty close to correct on the grandstand conditions but the corportion (which Conole was a minor partner) did not build the track and there were second opinions on the soil samples that did not all agree on the condition of the grandstand.

I knew Dick very well. He perhaps appeared gruff but deep down inside he was a teddy bear. He had a problem with the local newspaper. TWS got second hand treatment in the sports media but they were always there for the free passes,,etc. but the advertising department was the first one's standing in line to sell advertising.

I can't fight Dick's battles for him now but your statement about leaving the dead alone was good.

I suggest you take your own advice.

[This message has been edited by brazos county observer (edited 8/2/2009 5:20p).]

edit to add the word "teddybear" because I tried to use the work discribing a gentle cat and it made me appear to use a gross word. Wow!

[This message has been edited by brazos county observer (edited 8/2/2009 5:23p).]

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I think this may be a prime example of greed and the negative consequences that come with it.

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The owner wasn't greedy, he just had zero vision. You have to spend money to make money and he didn't get the memo.

The location of the track is and was perfect for the reasons stated in those newspaper clippings. Access was the problem. Talladega is in the boonies but has decent access to Interstate 20.

I doubt you'll see the speedway demolished to build something else anytime soon because the cost to tear it down and remove the track and tunnels would be off the charts. Maybe 50 years from now.

My prediction: It will be a ghost town within 10 years when the weather finally takes its toll on the pavement surface and nobody will be able to practice there.

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When the oil crisis hit in the early 70s, people other than pure racing fans didn't want to drive any long distance to get there.

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Rufus T Aggie: You seem to know a lot about TIS/TWS. Did you work there too?

I think the person who uses Eric 76 who post a lot on the Panhandle/South Plains board worked there too. I think Eric worked in the same area that I was in. Eric, if you see this please respond.

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I never saw this until today!

I worked at several different things at TWS. For several years, I worked turn crew at every single motorcycle race on the road course. And years of timing and scoring during the SCCA races.

For the big races, I worked for press box doing various jobs before race day. Sometimes I typed up the starting lineup after qualifying for the press handouts. I also had to test the telephone lines with the telephone company representative. The first time I ever sent a fax was on an old, old fax machine (the paper wrapped around a drum that then spun beneath a sensor that detected light and dark and transmitted it to the other end) at the speedway office for the Dallas Morning news reporter.

One time I was asked to write down the colors of all the race cars. There was a problem with that because I'm color blind. I got one of the reporters to help me.

One of the more unique things I did was driving the pace car to town the day before one race to wash it at a car wash. That didn't work out too well because I washed one of the decals off of the car. They never asked me to do that again.

During the race, I would be in the scoring tower. Initially I just relayed the results on a private telephone circuit up to the announcer's box and the score board operator when necessary and the top ten positions to the press box every ten laps. Later I would do a track side chart of the race while a friend of mine would relay the information to the announcer's booth, scoreboard operator, and press box.

I knew Dick Canole and Mike Connor back then. As someone else said they were quite likable. The only time I saw them really mad was during the driver's protest at an Indy car race. The drivers of the four cylinder engine cars made significantly qualifying laps at significantly below race speeds. Some of them at speeds as low as 80 mph and maybe a bit lower. The two of them were fuming.

Now I'm going to spend the rest of the year wondering who pepe the dog is.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

You worked with me in the Press Box and could have heard me on the PA, especially during that
USAC protest time trials.

Can't remember your friends name that came with you.

Still have the neat hat?

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^^^^^^^^^^^^

You worked with me in the Press Box and could have heard me on the PA, especially during that
USAC protest time trials.

Can't remember your friends name that came with you.

Still have the neat hat?

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Time for me to wrack my brains.

The one who came out there with me was Paul. There was also Tim who was the one who got me working in the press box. There were others, but I don't remember them by name. Except for Wacky, but I think that he was only at the SCCA races and those TWS races like TROC that weren't sanctioned by anyone.

I still have the hat. Also the pickup (an International C-900) but I haven't had time to fix it up and get it running again. The last time I drove it was about 1992 or 1993.