McCorkell, Jackson County agree to one-year extension
After weeks of speculation, the racing community has an answer for the 2013 season at the Jackson Speedway: promoter Jon McCorkell and the racing committee of the Jackson County Commissioners have verbally agreed to a one-year extension on the McCorkell’s current lease of the Speedway. The decision was made at their annual season wrap-up meeting last Friday.
“There are some details that will need to get ironed out and the deal will need to get voted on by the full board of commissioners of Jackson County,” McCorkell said, “but we are all on the same page so I don’t think there will be any problems. The commissioners have always been very open-minded and very easy to work with.”
With the current state of the racing industry still feeling the effects of the economic slow-down, racing promoters across the country have been working hard to keep the numbers of racers at all levels, as well as fans, at levels that will continue to support auto racing.
The situation is no different at Jackson Speedway, according to McCorkell.
“I think one of our biggest challenges going into the 2013 season will be to try and keep our sprint car numbers up,” McCorkell said. “We are certainly going to be running sprint cars and all of our IMCA classes as well.”
However, there will undoubtedly be some changes to the racing program for the 2013 season.
“We will certainly be running some 360 sprint shows (and likely some 410 shows) – I’m just not sure exactly the frequency. We may not run 360 sprints every single week. We may try and set up more Friday/Saturday double header shows, as they seem to work better to pull in some traveling teams. I would guess we are looking at 12 to 18 shows between Jackson and some traveling shows for next year,” McCorkell said.
For the 305 sprint car class, McCorkell is also unsure what path to take for next season.
“There seems to be a lot of tracks looking hard at the Racesaver program that IMCA has put together. I guess we will see how many other tracks are going to go this route and try and see what will work the best for Jackson Speedway,” McCorkell said. “Will this class survive? I am not sure yet. But, be assured, we are going to run the 305 sprints at our season-ending September 29 show.”
McCorkell also noted another thought with regards to sprint cars might be going back to the inverted point average to determine lineups for next season.
One new possibility for the 2013 season could involve the construction of a mini-sprint track in the infield of the speedway. By doing so, this could involve moving part or all of the current infield pits to the outfield pits off of turn one.
McCorkell is sure that the Speedway’s IMCA classes, the sport compacts, hobby stocks, sport modifieds and stock car classes will not see much changes, as they have all run well through the past seasons.
“As far as a lot of the promotions that we have been running, such as our Spring Nationals, last week’s Bike Night and the like, I would expect we will keep building up some of these special events, just like we have been doing the past several years,” McCorkell said.