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Ar-rowhead M o tor- Speedway STORY AND P HOTOS BY s corr R OUSSEA U SAN BERNARDINO, CA, MAY 24 t' s jus t abo ut 8 p.m . on a Thursday night at th e Orange Show E vents Center in San Bernardino, and be fore an assembl ed crowd of about 1000, reign ing U.S . Nat io n a l Speedway Champion Charlie "Th e Edge" Venegas is racing wid e open at the new Arrowhead Motor Speedway. That's something th is gathering of race fans might norma lly expect him to be doing were it not for one thing - Veneg as is nowh ere near his motorcycle. Instead - now and a s the night goes on - he 's here , he's there, in the paddock, on the tra ck, behind the wheel of his Toyota pickup , giving the racing surface a qu ick sc rub to keep it in tiptop sha pe , confe rrin g with the referee.. . Ch a r lie Ve n e g as is n 't ra c ing speedwa y at Arrowhead Motor Speedway tonigh t, but he is the entire reason that oth ers are. Like few people involved in the sport stateside, speedway has been more a way of life than a just a profession or mere ho bby for Venegas. He chose the d iscipline while searching fo r a new racing opportunity after returning to Northern California from tr ade school back in 19 8 5, and h e immedia tely fell in love with it. From that po int on, Ve n e g as s a cr ificed what ever it took to advance him self in the s port. "Eve rythi ng from s lee ping in a lot of vans, to leaving Vallejo at 5 ~ . m. so that I cou ld race at Cos ta Mesa , just to be stu ffed into Second Division , to try- I 20 .JUNE 13, 2001 • cu e I e ing to make [Nati onal ] quallfiers , " Venegas said. "I've ded ica ted every th ing in m y life to it." Dilige nce a nd a never-sa y-d ie atti tude paid off, as Venegas ma de it to the top , whe the r tha t meant le av ing Am e ric a for sti nts in Europe an -style league racing , to winning Ca liforn ia St ate cha m pions hips, to finally e a rn ing th e U.S. National Ch ampionship victory that had eluded him all those y e a rs . In th e climate o f Am eric an speedway, he is one of the top riders in the game today. Wh ile th a t mi ght b e eno ugh fo r so me, for Ven ega s it isn't enough to jus t say that he is a top racer. Out of a sense of du ty that few others - includ ing World Cham pio ns - have s hown , Ven e gas ha s n o w vent ur e d t o the mantle of full-time ra ce p romoter. "The future of s peedway is important to me," Venegas said. "The average Joe doesn 't get to go to a II the pl a c e s a nd see all th e things tha t s peedway did for me. You couldn 't buy that. But now, I look at the futur e of the sport, and I see two guys - Billy J anniro and Ryan Fishe r - who are like our who le future. They're just a drop in the bucket compared to other coun tries." So, starting last year, Venegas , a San Bernardino resident for the past s ix years, formed a plan and promoted a few s pecia l speedway events o n a ma kes hift tra c k at the Or a nge Show, once a hotbed of speedway racing in the '80 s . Based upo n the success of those events, he elected to follow his vis ion of b ringi ng speedway back to the fairgrounds fulltime, with a perrna neVIl's nent fac ility called Arrowhead Motor Speedway. Yet , jus t three weeks before the opener, Arrowhead was an empty patch of broken asphalt in the comer of a parking lot at the Orange Show. "It took several days just to get the place ready to be bu ilt," Venegas said. "It took end less hours of planning and orga nizing equipm ent just to bring the dirt in." Somehow, and not without the volunteer help of a lot of friend s , such as th e man they call "S pee dwa y Jack," the facility was ready. to go as scheduled for its season opener on Thu rsday night, May 24, Venegas giVing the ca ll to roll out the first heat onto the eighth mile D-shaped track just after 8 p.m. Veneg a s s a ys he ra n th e ga m u t of emoti on s t he first tim e th e s ta rt ing gate went up. " I wa s ex ci te d, a nd rel ie ve d, b e c a u s e we h a v e a p la c e in San Be rnardino to b ring speedwa y ba ck ." he said . "It' s rea lly hard to expla in how I rea lly fe lt." Despite a faulty starting gate and few broken patches in the ra cing surface , the racing went about as smoothly as one might expect for a first -time show at an all-new facility, an d except for tha t stubbom ga te, the show mig ht h ave finished on tim e . Instead , Josh Larsen went down in the books as the first Sc ratch ma in ev ent winner at Arrowhead Motor Speedway, crossin g the finish line - a ra pid four laps that concluded a stella r night of ra c ing - at approximately 10:15 p.m. Nev ertheless, speedway was back in San Bernardino - hopefully for good. (Above) Longtime hot shoe Josh Larsen (center! chats with friend Kelly Inman (left) and fabled . announcer Bruce Flanders (right). the latter handling the mic for Arrowhead Motor Speedway. Larsen would go on to win the first scratch main at the new track. (RIght) The paddock was filled with anxious riders during the season opener. each waiting to take his tum on the new D-shaped eighth-mile facility. If that is to be the case, th en Ve negas is well awa re that the re a re mo re cha llenges ahea d . "Th ings like continu ing to leam the business side , ma king ends meet and getting ev eryth ing tied up for our sta rt at 8 p.m . each Wed nesday night. it's going to take a lot of time and hard work," Venegas said. "Racing is easy compared to this, but the goal is the sa me , t o get this deal co mpetitive week in and week out." Th e first part of that goal is simply to get t he word out that Wednesday night s peedway is back at the Orange Sh ow. As Ven egas p uts it, some people don't yet know it's back, and still others don 't know that it ever left - a far sadder situation. But he is confi dent that once the word is out, the sit ua tion will change for th e better and that speedway will fill a nice niche as mid -week enterta inment for the Inland Empire: two ho urs of relentless ra cing action that will see many of them back home before 10:30 p.m. "There are a lot of river and mounta in-travelin' people out here in the Inland Emp ire , " Venegas said . "Wed nesday is the traditional night, but it al so the most open n ight for those peop le . T h e y can c o me and wat ch speedway and then still load up their boats and go to the rive r on the weekends. Our s how breaks the work week up ." Venegas is c o nfid e nt that, as the facil ity im p ro ve s and the wo rd gets out , he can do much more for the sport, such as re · establish ing the junior speedway program in So Cal , rev ivin g a California State Champion ship meeting and, ultimately, being part of an AMA-sanctioned National Champ ion ship Sp e edway Series . Some of those goals a re long -term and some sho rt -t e rm , but they are goals that Venegas • and Arrowhead Motor Speedway - will continue to pursue without fail. . "It will take tim e and hard work , but it can only work for the positive ," Venegas sa id. "It's still an uph ill battle , but I'm not going to g ive up . I lo ve t his sport wa y too much to do that. " t:IIII