Mansfield Speedway
Notable volunteers help tame Mansfield surface
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Left to right David Wells, Mark Richards and Austin Pagani. (DirtonDirt)
MANSFIELD, Ohio (May 30) — Mark Richards understands as well as anyone the challenges of operating a racetrack and the expectations that come with providing racers and fans a quality racing surface.
After all, the Rocket1 Racing car owner spent 15 years helping operate Interstate 79 Speedway in Shinnston, W.Va., before the facility's 2003 closure.
So when Mansfield Speedway found itself needing additional help following Friday's turbulent World of Outlaws Late Model Series program — one plagued by excessive dust and a rough racing surface — Richards could relate to the predicament facing track owner Matt Tifft and his team.
At the request of World of Outlaws series director Steve Francis, Richards stepped in to assist Tifft and his staff, spending hours aboard the grader overnight Friday and again Saturday as the facility worked to improve conditions for its highly anticipated Blaster 57 Special — a standing-room-only event that ultimately paid $100,057 to the winner after a $43,057 bonus from the Niss family boosted the already healthy purse.
“I got off the grader at 4:59 a.m. And when I was walking to the truck, the sun was coming up; the sky was breaking for the sun to come up,” Richards said. “And then Francis was calling me at 9:30 a.m. So it had been a short, short night. … I was back on the grader about 15 (minutes) after 10 a.m.”
Initially hesitant to get involved, Richards said Francis called him after midnight seeking advice on how to address Friday’s issues with the surface.
“Francis asked me what they needed,” said Richards, whose experience operating grading equipment dates back decades through a background around construction and mining machinery and years spent helping run the I-79 oval. “He called me at about 12:30, asking, ‘What do we need to do to it?’ I told him what I thought. … (Francis) said, ‘Do you want to grade it?’ And I said, ‘No, I really don't want to.’ I said, ‘I just don't want the noise (or spotlight) from it.’
“So, I told him I didn't want to do it, and then I thought about it … and I thought, ‘This is gonna be a bad, bad deal for everybody.’ ”
Richards ultimately agreed to climb aboard the grader for what he expected would be only a few hours.
“Well, that couple hours turned into four-and-a-half, and then another, I don't know, three or four today,” Richards said Saturday. “And I hadn't been on a grader in 10 years.”
Richards wasn't the only one lending a hand. Team owner David Wells also climbed aboard grading equipment Saturday morning to assist track-prep worker Austin Pagani and the Mansfield Speedway staff as they worked to improve conditions ahead of the evening's program.
Francis said both Richards and Wells were trusted choices to summon given their experience and understanding in a difficult situation.
“I've known Mark and his ability to work on racetracks, and I've seen him jump on graders before,” Francis said. “He knew we were in a pinch here, and, you know, he was going to make this thing as good as he could possibly make it. And then, you know, David Wells stepped up and jumped in there and helped a lot there at the end as, you know, Mark had to come back and take care of his race team, too. I can't thank either one of them guys enough for stepping up.”
While the 4/10-mile oval remained on the rough side during just its third race program since returning from a seven-year dormancy — following its May 15 grand reopening and Friday's uneven World of Outlaws event — the racing surface showed noticeable improvement Saturday.
Though the track still took a toll on equipment — Drake Troutman and Ethan Dotson suffered engine failures earlier in the night, sixth-running Michael Norris broke a right-front tie rod on lap two and a mechanical issue sidelined third-running Josh Rice with 11 laps remaining — conditions were noticeably better.
"Was it ideal? Was it perfect? No. Was it at least 50 percent better than it was last night? It was at least 50 percent better than it was last night,” Francis said. “A lot of guys made a whole lot of money this week. We have some stuff tore up that nobody's ever happy about, but a lot of guys made a lot of money this week. Beautiful facility. Matt’s gonna spend the money here, I'm sure, to get the place and the surface straightened out.”
Francis also noted the circumstances Mansfield faced entering the weekend.
“We also didn't know they were going to get 6-8 inches of rain last week, have everything else they've tried to race all year long rained out, or rained on, or something like that,” Francis said. “Nobody could predict that at all.”
Garrett Alberson, who paced Saturday's opening 45 laps before finishing second behind winner Nick Hoffman, admitted he initially had his doubts for the second night’s program.
“Honestly, when we pulled out there for hot laps, I didn’t think it was going to work,” Alberson said. “When we pulled out there, the ruts down the straightaways were so deep. I didn’t even know if you could have a race on it. Whatever they did between there to make it so you can go race on it, it was actually less abusive than last night. I never in my life would’ve guessed that.”
Alberson said the straightaways slicking off helped reduce the severity of the rough patches because drivers weren't carrying as much speed into the corners.
“Whenever we got to the corner, we weren’t going near as fast and the holes didn’t look as big,” Alberson said. “They were big, but you were going slower when you got to them. I think that helped a lot. I thought they did a great job. You could move around on it and pass people in a couple different ways right there, when you got to lapped cars and stuff. Hats off to them.”
Overall, Richards was proud of what he, Wells and Pagani managed to accomplish in a quick overnight turnaround.
“I think the dust was better and the roughness was better,” Richards said. “It wasn't perfect, but it was what we could get done in the time we had.”
Richards has never been one to shy away from speaking his mind. But as someone with significant track operations experience, he refuses to publicly criticize promoters or racetracks, especially on social media.
“Anybody who bashes a racetrack is really wrong in this business,” Richards said. “A lot of it is circumstances that are beyond your control. I don't ever say anything bad about a promoter publicly. I might walk off thinking, man, that track was bad. But I'm not going to get on social media and bash some promoter. Because I was a promoter for 15 years, and we listened to it.
“There'd be nights that, hey, it was a hot day. We couldn't get enough water on the track. There were days we had some dust. I mean, what could we do about it? There were days we had some rough because we had rain. What can you do about it?”
Richards said that's why he felt compelled to help.
“Matt's doing a great job here, trying to make this go,” Richards said. “What do you want to do? Bash the guy for his racetrack and we end up not having races here? As a traveling team like we are, we've got to have these kinds of places. You're better off trying to make the best of it, and that's what I felt like we did.
“I mean, we made the best of it. Nick Hoffman won the race, you know? We fixed the track for Nick Hoffman to win.”
Hoffman made sure the efforts of Richards and Wells didn't go unnoticed. On Saturday, he posted a video on his personal X account showing the pair operating grading equipment and thanking them for stepping in to help.
By night's end, Hoffman had been rewarded with a monumental $100,057 victory, by far the biggest of his career.
“That went pretty much viral. It’s crazy,” Hoffman said of his X post. “I just wanted to give them a hat shake. They didn’t have to do that. For them to spend that many hours and work their ass off to give us something decent to race on, it still had character. But you can go around it for sure tonight. They all did a great job.
“As far as last night to tonight, it may not have looked 100 percent different, but I feel like in the race car it was a big 180. Obviously the winner will say that, but I feel like that’s right.”
