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When John McKarns, Jody Deery and Richard Schomburg signed an agreement Tuesday night, it assured that short-track racing — at least in the form that area fans have come to expect — will continue through the 2026 season at the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway.
The agreement between Motorsports Management Services, Inc. — which consists of McKarns, Jody Deery, Gregg McKarns and Jack Deery — and the
La Crosse Agriculture Society, which owns the facility, ends nearly 32 months of negotiations. Schom-burg is the outgoing president of the Ag Society.
“I think it’s a good thing. I know if they didn’t sign it, NASCAR more than likely would not be here,” said Bangor’s Kevin Nuttle-man, a 10-time Late Model track champion. “The biggest thing is we all need to continue to work together — the ag society, the drivers and the promoter.”
McKarns, who lives in Florida, and Jody Deery, who lives in Rockford, Ill., met nine times with the Ag Society race committee or the Ag Society board itself over that period. The negotiations were intense at times, McKarns said, but the former owner and promoter of the ARTGO series was confident the parties would reach an agreement.
“Jody and I looked at other options, but we very much wanted to stay here,” McKarns said.
Schomburg, who has served as president of the Ag Society for the past five years and also served as president during the mid-1990s, said neither side got everything they wanted in the agreement.
“I couldn’t be more satisfied. It is one of those contracts where the (Ag Society) board probably wanted some changes and I know John (McKarns) would have wanted some changes,” Schomburg said. “Overall, that is probably a good contract when both sides didn’t get everything and a compromise was reached at the middle.”
There were a number of changes from the original 20-year lease the two parties signed in 1987, McKarns said, but the bottom line is the caliber of racing will stay the same.
“I think we have one of the best racing shows in the nation,” McKarns said. “I don’t see any changes there.”
What changed in the new lease mainly dealt with the highly-popular Oktoberfest Race Weekend, an event that has drawn close to 20,000 fans each of the past five years. There is separate agreement for the Oktoberfest Race Weekend, and that lease is for 15 years.
“The biggest change (in that agreement) is we went from a percentage of the receipts to a flat fee that has an escalator clause,” McKarns said. “Now, we will lease the whole facility for seven days.”
The Fairgrounds Speedway, which drew an estimated 2,800 fans and 100 cars per race night this past season, is one of the most successful short tracks in the country. It has served as a training ground of sorts for a number of drivers over the years, and more than a dozen current Nextel Cup drivers have raced at the track at one point in their career.
The fans in the stands don’t go unnoticed by the drivers, Nuttleman said.
“I can remember when we first started out with 500 people on the hill (grandstands),” Nuttleman said. “That was in 1989, and we were lucky to get 500. We really didn’t know any better back then (if 500 was a good crowd). Now we look out and see a full hill.”
Chuck Deery, who has been the promoter at the Fairgrounds Speedway since 1987, said the race program itself has been fine-tuned over the years, and he said it will continue to undergo constant evaluation and possible changes will be reviewed.
“Our product has to change with the times but we don’t want to forget our roots either,” Chuck Deery said.
Jeff Brown can be reached at (608) 791-8403, or at jbrown@lacrossetribune.com
