|
Infinity Raceway was a built from my dream that was 3 years in the making. In the planning stage, the goal was to build a Raceway that would not only offer benefits for local racers, but a Raceway that would pull Tourism into Mancelona from afar. We understood that with manufacturing leaving our area, that the only hope we had to help the community was to find a pull, to increase tourism. We had to build something that would give tourists a reason to come and a reason for tourists to stop and not pass us by. We wanted a year around tourism draw, one that would could have Snow Drags as well as Grass Drags in the summer. So with this in mind, Infinity Raceway was born.
The land purchase was a critical step in making this successful. We needed land that had great snowfall and land that held that snowfall well into the spring. We needed land that we could build our race lanes to head due North. This was so that the racers, when looking at our timing system, would not be blinded by the sunlight when looking at the Professional Race Trees. Racing due North, would keep the sunlight at the racers back, at all times during the day. The property we found on Doerr Rd fit our needs perfectly. So with this purchase that Kirt and I made, Infinity Raceway was born.
Next we spent several months building our track. We built our 4 lane track that features 4 - 25 foot wide racing lanes. These lanes are 500’ long with a 1700 + Feet of Shutdown area. Our overall track width between fences, is 174 feet wide. That makes for a very safe facility for even the fastest of race snowmobiles! Our entire racing surface in enclosed with approximately 5000 feet of fencing, so that again, it makes for a very safe closed course event! We purchased our own tractor and groomer, which keeps our track flat and smooth at all times. This is a great benefit to the racers as well as keeping it a more safe environment for our racers. Our Spectator side and our Racer Hot Pit side are on opposite sides of the race facility, again for safety.
We built a 2 story timing race tower, complete with wrap around decking. This was to house our equipment and elevate our staff, to add to our level of safety when watching our raceway. We next purchased a Race America 4 Lane Computerized Timing and Scoring System that fit our needs. This system tells our racers Reaction Time, 60 foot times, ET and MPH at the finish line. This system is as good as any you will find at any NHRA track, anywhere in the US! All of our scoring and timing is done with computer, eliminating the element of human error.
We opened our raceway gates for our first event on January 23, 2010. From the start, this raceway was successful with 105 racers showing up and with us running nearly 200 classes! Our 1st event saw several hundred spectators line our raceway to watch our 1st ever event. This event hosted racers from Canada, racers from all over Michigan as well as Ohio and Indiana. Our second event was hosted on February and we kept on growing with our last event being held on March 6th. The March 6th event was our World Series Of Drags and was hosted by the Antrim County High Tea, with this event being held for Breast Cancer Awareness, which we held a pre-race ceremony.
This March 6th World Series hosted racers from Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Canada. We had approximately 240 entries and several hundred spectators watching this event! Hopefully our goal to help the local economy has been successful. If you have been to Infinity Raceway, Thank you for coming out and if you haven’t, come on out and join us for our next event on June 26th and see what we are about!
Tim Kauska
Race Director
Infinity Raceway
|
|
