Bennett authors a Holland Opus at speedway

By Larry Ott / Buffalo News

Holland NASCAR Motorsports Complex will throw the first green flag of its 50th anniversary season Saturday. Let's hope the golden anniversary night goes a little more smoothly than the inaugural one, which turned out to be a disaster.

"I remember that we ran our first race on June 24, 1960, and we had problems with track preparation," said founder and promoter Ron Bennett. "The conditions turned out so dusty that no one could see. The dust was so much a problem that we had to cancel the rest of the evening. The dust was so thick that when the fans left we could see the spots where they had been sitting."

"We went out in July and bought lights and erected them and the night conditions were so much better at keeping the dust down that we resumed racing and things went OK from there."

That first night would challenge the three boyhood friends — Bennett, Richard Knox and Gordon Becker — whose vision created the track. But it didn't end friendships or their dream: The facility known for most of its years as Holland International Speedway has been a mainstay of the Western New York sporting scene.

"The three of us were in the same kindergarten together," said Bennett of Holland's founding trio. "As we were growing up we stayed close friends even though Richard later moved to Buffalo."

Knox and Becker retired a few years ago but Bennett is still very much involved with the high-banked asphalt oval. Racing has been in his blood a long time.

"I drove stock cars in 1958 and 1959 at Angelica, Hunt, Bradford, Cuba, Olean and Lancaster. I won a feature and some heat races and even rolled my car once.

"In 1960 the three of us thought about building and managing a racetrack of our own and we went for it. We decided to build a dirt, one-third mile track patterned after Angelica because that was my favorite track."

During Holland's first few seasons, Bennett attended law school at UB. He would earn his law degree and has been an attorney as well as a race promoter ever since.

"We bought a cornfield and started building the track," recalled Bennett. "We even went into woods bringing out our own logs, which we took to a sawmill in North Collins. The wood was made into planks for our hub rails, announcers booth and bleachers. The only mistake we made was that some of the trees were beech and we didn't realize that is a hard grade of wood. Boy, it was sure hard to pound nails into."

Seating capacity was about 1,200, and the fans were treated to what Bennett called "rough-and-tumble" racing. The stars were Art Clark, Dick Flaig and Pete Tingue, men who built their cars in their own garages.

In 1964, Holland management expanded the track to three-eighths of a mile by moving the backstretch.

In 1967, Holland took a big step, gaining sanction from NASCAR. Bennett said those were the track's heydays, when Bethlehem Steel employed 20,000 people and the then Winston Cup didn't provide competition on Saturday night. It has been Western New York's only NASCAR sanctioned track ever since.

"We enjoyed our local sanction with ERCA ... but wanted to gain more of a national presence and NASCAR was the answer," said Bennett. "In 1967, the late Tiny Lund, a former Daytona 500 winner, came to race at Holland.

"The following season, Buck Baker, a top national NASCAR racer and the father of Buddy Baker, competed in a Grand American event at Holland."

Bennett said Baker's victory at Holland was his last as a competitor. Not so lucky in that event was Richard Childress, who now runs one of NASCAR's top teams. His No. 3 car hit the fence.

In 1968, Holland became a paved asphalt facility and eventually the track seating capacity was raised to about 7,000.

"I drove the grader for many hours getting the dirt track ready and it was very time consuming and very labor intensive," stressed Bennett. "Once we paved the track as they had done during that time at Lancaster, it saved a lot of time. I love dirt track competition but asphalt was best for Holland."

In 1982, the track joined the modified series, which awarded its national title to the driver who accumulated the most points. This drove the competitors to race as often as possible. Richie Evans, the best modified driver of all, won both the national and Holland championships that year.

In 1985, the Busch Grand National North Series started to pass through Holland, which graduated several competitors to the top Cup series including Martin Truex and Jimmy Spencer, now a Speed Network announcer.

Over the years, Holland has expanded, adding hospitality suites, patio and picnic facilities, a small amusement park, pit pads, a tech inspection building and even a first turn swimming pool. The seating capacity is up to 9,000.

"You know, over the years there has been a general rule that if a track could survive for its first five years, it usually was OK for the long run," said Bennett. "We got through those first five and have enjoyed another 45 since."

One of his secrets is that he's tried to keep the events fun because "you can stand on a freeway overpass and watch cars go by."

Bennett's three children, Ron Jr., Tim and Julie, all worked at the speedway from the time they were young. A few years ago, Ron Bennett turned much of the daily speedway operation over to Tim, who serves as general manager.

Holland has hit harder times in the last few years, with dwindling attendance and lower car counts in certain divisions. Two years ago Holland stopped running its signature NASCAR late models on a weekly basis. They have been replaced by the new crate LAMOT cars.

Ron Bennett says that he has high hopes for the LAMOT division and the staff is committed to adding marketing promotions.

Ron Bennett is the area's longest running active race promoter and still serves as NASCAR's Northeast region director.

He's also been an attorney since the track's early days, a job Bennett continues to hold. This leads to many days of long hours. Yet he says that he has no plans to retire anytime soon from racing or from practicing law.

"I have been involved in racing all these years because I have a deep passion for auto racing — always have and always will," Bennett said. "It also is a great diversion from the world I'm involved in most of the week as an attorney. I'm sure that I probably should retire but I also know that I won't."

Source: Larry Ott / Buffalo News
Posted: May 21, 2009

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