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Sunday, May 04, 2003

By Chris Dolack, Special to the Post-Gazette

It has been a little more than year since Red Miley added ownership of Motordrome Speedway to his growing list of businesses. He has been involved in racing since 1969 and has been the promoter at Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Motor Speedway for 15 years. But Miley took a conservative approach to running the first year at the NASCAR-sanctioned track in Smithton.

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Miley quickly discovered what he needed to do was take a more hands-on approach, especially in the area of marketing. While he has left many of the racing decisions to competition director Ron Brutt, Miley said he was surprised by the influence NASCAR sanctioning had in dealing with not only drivers but also potential sponsors.

"It was more of a handful than I initially anticipated, but in a good way," Miley said. "With the NASCAR sanctioning of the speedway comes a lot more marketing and a lot more effort and time with marketing partners at the speedway."

Within weeks of finalizing the deal to purchase Motordrome in 2002, Miley also went to China to adopt a baby and bought an auto air conditioning business in Carnegie. It left him little time to prepare for the racing season. The second time around, he grabbed the sponsorship responsibilities himself.

"We're starting to understand how NASCAR operates and how they want to run the Weekly Racing Series. I just didn't have a clue what that was all about until I really started to get to know the people and meet with them. From the decal programs on fenders to the national points championship, if there's an area that caught me off guard a little bit NASCAR was probably it. I didn't realize how much they are involved and how much they bring to the table to help market the speedways."

Miley's most significant on-track addition this season is the crate motor, a low-cost sealed engine that prevents teams from tampering with it. The mere mention of the motor created a buzz in the pits last season. Its use in races this year upsets many.

"It created a little bit of a firestorm at first as some of the competitors weren't happy, but as it looks now, we're going to have two or three cars with crate motors in them," he said. "I just see it as something that's inevitable. You can't be paying $15,000 to $30,000 for motors in today's economy and expect to have a bunch of cars in the field."

The crate motor is designed to last up to three years. It is a fuel-injected engine rather than a carbureted one, which should help with fuel management and extend longevity. The motors can be leased for about $5,800 a year or be bought outright for $8,800. To prevent tampering with it, bolts are sheared and the computer codes have more than a million combinations.

The problem is that many of the drivers continue to race carbureted engines and the crate motor proved to be much faster. To level the field, Brutt required the crate motor to use a restrictor plate, which brought it back in line with the rest of the cars.

That program is similar to the spec motor arrangement at Miley's other track, PPMS. He, and his family-owned Miley Motorsports team, is in the final year of a contract to lease the track as promoters, but he expects to work out another three-year deal. While he has big plans for Motordrome, Miley understands why fans seem to give him a hard time about not making major improvements at PPMS.

"The fact that we own Motordrome vs. leasing it gives me a lot more latitude," he said. "If there's one knock at Pittsburgh about why don't they do this or why don't they do that, [fans] don't understand -- and I understand that they don't understand -- you can't make big investments, banks aren't going to give you big dollars when you have three-year leases."

Lug nuts

Drag racing at Pittsburgh Raceway Park in New Alexandria is under way with gates opening at 10 a.m. and eliminations at 3 p.m. today. After today, racing switches to Saturdays until October. ... The World of Outlaws sprint car series makes its first stop in Western Pennsylvania May 20 at Lernerville Speedway.

Chris Dolack is the senior writer of Auto Racing Digest magazine. He can be reached at cdolack@chrisdolack.com.