April May Preston-Elms Chosen For Northeast Dirt Modified Hall Of Fame Honors

Story By: BUFFY SWANSON / NORTHEAST DIRT MODIFIED HALL OF FAME – WEEDSPORT, NY – April May Preston-Elms, co-owner of Bear Ridge Speedway in Bradford, VT, will be the recipient of the annual Outstanding Woman in Racing Award during the 2020 Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame induction ceremonies.

The July 23 event is scheduled to be held at the Hall of Fame Museum located on the Weedsport Speedway complex in New York.

Preston-Elms and several others will be honored before family and friends for the many contributions they have made to the sport of dirt racing.

As a kid, Preston-Elms spent Thursday nights with her family in the grandstands at Thunder Road. She returned to the sport as a participant in 1994, racing a “Fast Four” Mustang on the asphalt at Claremont and later Canaan Fair Speedway in NH.

“When I started racing, I was competing against 50 some-odd cars. I only made it to the A main maybe five times that first year. But I really liked it,” April May said.

Racing for nine seasons, through 2002, Preston-Elms only won a single race — but she understood what she was contributing to the sport. “I’ve always considered that without the April Mays of this world, there would be no Butch Elms, with nine championships at Bear Ridge. There would be no Brett Hearns, with 900 wins,” she reasoned. “Those guys need someone like me to race against.”

By 2000, April May was immersed in the New Hampshire racing scene, not only competing but also hosting a weekly one-hour radio show on local happenings at the tracks. She was introduced to Bear Ridge Speedway owner Butch Elms at a car show in Hanover in 2002.

“I asked him to be on the radio show, and that was the beginning of the end,” April May deadpanned.

In addition to Bear Ridge, Butch was also running the Friday night dirt track at Canaan Fair back then. April May had never before been to a dirt oval.

“He invited me to Canaan, got me right up on the flagstand and I got all dirty,” Preston-Elms chuckled. “After that I was hooked.”

By the end of the summer, two things happened: April May and Butch became a couple; and they bought Canaan Fair.

For the next four years, their lives were nuts. On Fridays, Butch came down to Canaan to race-direct and run the dirt track. The next morning, he’d drive back to Vermont, to prep and run Bear Ridge, while April May operated the Saturday program on Canaan’s paved oval.

To say it was a lot is an understatement. They were involved in every aspect of both speedways, from sponsorships to concessions, from track prep to building trophies. In the off-season, April May and her crew made all the food for the annual awards banquets, serving 500 between the two facilities.

Not only that, they were both holding down full-time jobs: April May still works for the National Park Service while Butch is a cattle dealer and managed a dairy farm until last year.

“It was too much,” Preston-Elms admitted. They sold Canaan Fair in 2006.

When April May stepped into Bear Ridge, the existing system had been more or less static for a lifetime. The quarter-mile dirt track had been in Butch’s family since 1967. Many employees had been there almost as long. They had their way of doing things, which was the same as always.

Dynamo that she is, Preston-Elms started shaking up the status quo.

“When I first got there, I looked up and saw 200 people in the stands,” she remembered. “I thought, how the heck are we keeping this going?”

Since her arrival, the facility has been spruced up. They extended their VIP area from one booth to four; changed the location of the scoring tower to improve fan visibility; added bathrooms and a new novelty stand; erected a handicapped-accessible tower with space for spotters; rearranged the staging lanes to afford fan access; and expanded the parking lot.

The team addressed rule inconsistencies and tightened up the program to end by 10:30pm. Kids’ Club activities and community outreach programs are featured each week.

The result? Since 2006, the fan base has more than quadrupled in size, some weeks reaching 1,500. And car counts are healthier than they’ve ever been. The former 358 Mod class was dropped in favor of Crate Sportsman and after three years the numbers jumped from eight to over 21 cars per night. In 2011, the Sportsman Mods and the retro Sportsman Coupes were sanctioned by DIRTcar, which connected the remote Vermont dirt track with the rest of the territory. When DIRTcar announced its 2020 Sportsman series schedule, the tour included a first-ever stop at Bear Ridge.

“Having me come in from the outside offered a different perspective about what could be done,” Preston-Elms acknowledged.

Hall of Fame journalist Dr. Dick Berggren, himself a New Englander, notes that April May “is a critical part” of motorsports in the region, with her involvement at Bear Ridge, the New England Antique Racers group, and the North East Motor Sports Museum.

“The race track she owns with her husband hosts a broad array of cars from the old coupes and sedans to Sprint Cars and center steer Modifieds,” said Berggren. “A favorite is the DMA Midgets which race for free. Finish in the top three and you get a trophy. Crews are admitted free and a suite is reserved for family and friends who just want to watch.

“It’s better even than a throwback,” Berggren concluded.

For her part, Preston-Elms is still full steam ahead, even with the road blocks in place from the current pandemic. She and Butch are itching to get going.

However, she has drawn the line on one of her old duties. “I’m not doing all the cooking for the banquets anymore,” April May firmly informed. “Now, someone else does the catering and we all enjoy a sit-down dinner at a nice hotel.”