Speedway’s allure keeps racing fans coming back
Annual three-day event brings top racers and fans together
Peterborough Speedway has an allure that keeps Bob Franks and Troy Whitmore coming back.
It brought Franks, 60, who lives near Fowlers Corners, back behind the wheel after a 15-year break. It brings the 40-year-old Whitmore, of Cavan, back each week as one of the track’s most dedicated fans.
Each Thanksgiving weekend the track attracts many more. Two hundred of the province’s top stock car drivers descended on the Mount Pleasant Road facility for three days of racing. The 26th annual event is billed as Ontario’s Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing.
Franks started racing in the thunder class in the early 1980s and ran for 22 years at Peterborough, Kawartha Speedway and Mosport. With two kids going to college and university, his racing budget as Franks put it, he stepped away from the sport in his mid-forties.
“I needed a break,” he said. “I raced all the time, Friday nights, Saturday nights. The break was good for me.”
He stayed close to the sport as a spectator and worked in Derek Lynch’s pit crew in the Pinty’s NASCAR Series for five years. He always hoped to return to racing even if he was old enough to be grandfather to many of his competitors.
“I really didn’t think it was going to happen. I’ve always loved the modifieds and I said to my wife a year ago last spring I’d really like to race again. She said, if you really want to do it, do it. I went right out and bought a modified.”
He ran the six-race series and an OSCAAR event at Peterborough and two OSCAAR races at Kawartha.
“The first night I got back to green flag racing when the green flag came down it was like, I’m back. It felt great,” said Franks, whose focus is different now than it was in his 20s.
“I never came back wanting to go points racing. I just wanted to have some fun and run the local tracks and get some seat time again,” he said.
He’s retiring next month and hopes to expand his 2019 schedule.
“I’d like to travel to Sunset and Flamboro. I’ve run those tracks but it was years ago,” he said.
On the other side of the fence, Whitmore was introduced to the track by his late father Jim when he was a teen. It sparked a lifelong love of the sport.
“The first time I saw it I was hooked,” said Whitmore, an electronics repairman. “As soon as you hear the car you get excited. You want to be out there and be in that car.”
On a few occasions, Whitmore has taken his truck onto the track for the King of the Hill intermission feature where fans are timed doing laps on the oval. He also entered a couple of enduro races.
“It’s a lot different than what you think watching from the stands,” he said. “It’s like nothing else. Once you’ve spun your tires once it’s hard to not want to do it again.”
But he says he can’t really afford to race so he remains a loyal spectator. He’s travelled to races at Brighton, Flamboro and Sunset.
“I have yet to be at a NASCAR race which is kind of embarrassing. I need to do that,” said Whitmore.
The Autumn Colours Classic is a spectator’s fill of racing. It’s three days, 10 divisions and almost 24 hours of racing.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” he said. “You see cars that you wouldn’t normally see.
“I give up my Thanksgiving dinner to come,” said Whitmore. “You do what you have to do.”
Growing up in the shadows of the track he feels a connection to it.
“I keep hearing of small tracks closing and I just hope this one doesn’t close,” said Whitmore.