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Those Nov. 12 “Dirt Madness for Matthews” races succeeded in drawing a crowd and raising more than $5,000 for the injured Jeff Matthews and his family, Ninker said; they also inspired Ninker and his fellow organizers to want to host several more …
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A November day of racing at the Park County Fairgrounds was “kind of like they used to have here — only we had bigger and better ones than ever used to race here,” organizer Brock Ninker said of the cars. “We have more horsepower hitting this track than it’s ever seen before.”
Those Nov. 12 “Dirt Madness for Matthews” races succeeded in drawing a crowd and raising more than $5,000 for the injured Jeff Matthews and his family, Ninker said; they also inspired Ninker and his fellow organizers to want to host several more racing events in 2017.
“The drivers liked it; the fans liked it; we just need some way to work with you guys to be able to do it again,” Ninker told county officials earlier this month.
He hasn’t put together a full tentative schedule for the coming year, but he already knows he’d like to reserve the grandstands for a day of racing in April.
“We’d like to try it again,” Ninker said. “We’ve had a lot of really good feedback from the community of wanting us to do more of these.”
November’s “Dirt Madness for Matthews” featured more than 30 racing teams competing with six different categories. The entire event was put together by volunteers — even the drivers raced for no monetary reward, Ninker said.
He said the crews also found an apparently ideal amount of water to put on the track.
“We had guys that raced here back in the day that said that track’s never held up that well before, so we found the right combination with the dirt that we have,” Ninker said.
At the Dec. 13 fair board meeting, Ninker said he plans to stop putting on his events through his non-profit, H&G Foundation, and instead run them through a new limited liability company called Dirt Madness 307.
“That way we can deal with our own stuff without having so much to worry (about) and so many eyeballs staring at us; we can just worry about doing what we do,” Ninker said. He said running the events through a non-profit “turned into kind of a nightmare.”
With the county seeking a new events coordinator to oversee the fairgrounds, Ninker is expected to speak with county commissioners about his plans in the near future.
