Speedway revs it up to 50
Peterborough Speedway set to celebrate half a century of local racing with opener Saturday
J.P. Josiasse has owned Peterborough Speedway longer than any of its previous owners, but he wasn’t even born when it first opened.
The one-third-of-a-mile oval stock car track just west of the city was a quarter-mile loop when it opened May 28, 1967 as Westgate Speedway. The track’s website’s history indicates it opened at a cost of $70,000 with four partners at the helm – John Plunkett, Bob Boynton, Harley Coons and John Van De Bor, all from the Peterborough area.
The track will open for its 50th anniversary season on Saturday with racing beginning at 5 p.m.
Rather than have one night to commemorate the anniversary, Josiasse, 46, entering his 19th season as owner, says the celebrations will occur all season long.
“We have a whole bunch of different things we’re going to do over the course of the summer,” he said. “Every division is going to get a 50-lap race on different nights over the course of the season. The 50th person to come in through the gate each night is going to get in for free. We’re going to bring back some people from the track’s early days and honour them by having them start the races. We’re going to ride it the whole year.”
The original track was built on an 18-inch base of soil-cement topped by two-and-a-half inches of asphalt. The pits were located on the infield and cars entered the track from the west-side of the property. There was no wall in the early days with a dirt perimeter that drivers sometimes used to pass other vehicles.
“The main grandstand here is the original grandstand,” said Josiasse. “They’ve been expanded over time. Where the big tower is now there used to be a little eight-by-10 scoring tower on stilts up behind the grandstand.”
In April, 1970, the track was sold to Toronto’s Brian Aitken who tried to quell complaints of rough driving, drinking and fighting in the pits and shoddy work by the clean-up crew in a pre-season drivers’ meeting, according to the Speedway’s history. Despite the issues, the track outlasted five other facilities in Central Ontario that existed when it opened to become the only one in the area in 1971 until the eventual opening of Mosport.
Things got even rockier under Aitken as his attempts to crack down on drivers drew resistance. One of those drivers, Art Robinson, eventually purchased the track. He dug a well to add running water and added a garage that stands in the current pits to this day. Robinson also added the front trailer that is now the ticket office.
In 1986 Darragh Moroney bought the track and renamed it Peter borough’ s West gate Speedway. Within a year he sold it to another former driver, Kim Wallace. He dropped “Westgate” and gave it its current name.
Some of the track’s biggest transformations came under Wallace, who expanded the size of the track in 1993, keeping the original front stretch, while pushing out the north side of the track. The wall was added at that point. He built the current three-storey tower and improved the lighting. Wallace also founded the Autumn Colours Classic in 1993 and it quickly grew into the province’s largest stock car attraction with 200 cars coming for the threeday festival at Thanksgiving.
The track was in a slump with car counts dropping when Josiasse purchased it from Wallace in 1999. There was also competition on the horizon from a new track at Kawartha Downs called Kawartha Speedway.
While many of the top late-model drivers left to race at Kawartha, Josiasse moved to create new entrylevel classes like mini stock and later 4Funs to make the sport less expensive for those looking to get in. The car counts rose and Autumn Colours grew to 300 cars.
Today Peterborough Speedway has prevailed as the area’s busiest track while Kawartha lies dormant for all but three scheduled race nights in 2017.
“Everything we did was always received well and it was just determination to hang in there,” said Josiasse. “Over the years the end result shows it has definitely paid off.
“There was a challenge there, at the time, I thought I was up to the task for,” he said.
Josiasse believes his survival is partially due to the fact he was a driver and tries to do things with the driver’s interests in mind.
“I’ve always done this more for the love of the sport than to try to put anybody else out of business,” he said. “You can’t run these places just based on money, you have to love the sport. You also have to make smart decisions.”
Opening night is also Country 105 Fan Appreciation Night with free grandstand admission for all. Racing classes include Mini Stock, 4Funs, Renegade Trucks, Thunder, Late Model and Legends.