Ted & Brandi White: What It Takes To Be A Promoter

Column By: ROBERT SYMONDS / RPW – WOODHULL, NY – Success never just ‘happens.’ Lots of time, preparation and hard work sets the wheels in motion on the track to success. One dirt track in the Southern Tier of Upstate NY has seen 53 years of success.

Woodhull Raceway opened in 1964 and survived an uphill battle to be the best track in Steuben County. Under current owners Ted and Brandi White, the track still stands as one of the best in the area. This is all due to the hard work, time, and money necessary for to run and maintain a good facility.

Mostly all of the fans, drivers, car owners, crews, etc. don’t get to see what happens during the week, but rather during the racing event on Saturday nights. Still, during the racing event, there’s a lot of work by a range of different employees to ensure the event runs smoothly for all involved. To enlighten those who have not seen the process, I recently talked with the White’s about owning this Saturday night racing facility.

“It’s a 24/7/365 job,” Ted mentioned Saturday afternoon before opening the gates. “It’s nothing to slouch over. Preparing for the next week’s race starts immediately after the event on Saturday night and goes all the way through the following week. Promoting a track is everything. You have to be a carpenter, marketer, mechanic, etc.”

Typically, people wonder about the track preparation during the week.

“Between Mark (Fay) and myself, it’s roughly 22 hours per week,” he said. “There’s so much to do, however, within these 22 combined hours. Early in the week, the surface is torn up with discs and a grader. After it is torn up, it is laid back down and packed.”

The track prep crew then puts as many as 18-28 truckloads of water which is nearly 110,000 gallons being spread on the racing surface in just two days. According to White, how much water being put on the track is all determined by the weather for each race day.

“It’s all up to the wind and the sun,” he said. “If we get wind a lot, the track will dry out faster than an overcast day would with very little wind.”

As I mentioned, the track surface is a main component, but certainly not the only responsibility of an owner/promoter. Typically the promoter helps oversee the officiating when needed. Usually they will help to make a call when another opinion is needed or help to alleviate a situation that had happened during a particular race. The officiating of a race may seem easy. However, it is this responsibility that can be the hardest of all, just as it is in any other sport.

With the combined hours of working on the track surface, officiating, fix/upgrading equipment and tools, marketing, etc, the job of owning and promoting a race track truly is a 24/7/365 job…just as Ted mentioned. Some of the decisions made are not only for the racers but also the fans and workers who will be at the track as well each race day.

Ted and Brandi are a team when it comes to owning and promoting the Woodhull Raceway. Brandi does as much as Ted during the week for the raceway, just in a different magnitude. She orders the food week-to-week, manages the weekly budget and sales (tickets, tires/fuel, food, etc.), and also helps manage the staff on a weekly basis.

On top of all of this, Brandi helps oversee hospitality. Making sure sponsors and fans are happy is a key component when owning a race track. If fans or sponsors are not satisfied with the way the track is run, they may not return to the track next week or next season.

Brandi makes sure a hostess is working with the sponsors for the evening to ensure that they are pleased with the hospitality they receive. When fans visit the Woodhull Raceway and pay for a reserved seat or reserved tower suite, Brandi makes sure these seats and rooms are readily available for the fans viewing pleasure.

After all the hours put into one track, one might ask what about any spare time to spend with family.

“This job does take away from our family time,” Brandi told me. “When we get a call for someone wanting to buy a tire, Ted will drive to Woodhull to help out that racer with the purchase.”

While I was talking to Ted, he mentioned this to me about owning a race track.

“Getting a perfect race track for the week makes me as excited as winning a race when I was a car owner,” he said “As pleased as I am with a great race track, one negative post on social media erases all of it.”

This is a brief overview of what it takes to own and promote a race track in 2017. Without these race tracks, we would not be enjoying the racing action each and every week, so please go out and visit your local track. Make sure you thank the owners, promoters, workers, and even sponsors for all of their hard work to put a race on each weekend during the season.

It’s certainly not as easy it looks.

Writers Note: I have to thank Steven Ovens for his assistance in the editing of this piece.