While the bulk of the board will remain the same, there will be a couple of new directors on the Estevan Motor Speedway board this year.
President Byron Fichter returns for his second year and will be joined by vice president Gregg Mann, secretary Aaron Turnbull, treasurer Lynn Trobert and members at large Tyson Turnbull, Jeremy Swanson, Devon Gonas, Dale Labatte and Blake Penna. Trobert, a longtime member in the past, and Penna are new this year.
The financial picture, which was released at Monday’s annual general meeting, was fairly rosy form the 2018 season.
“We made significant headway on our finances,” said Fichter. “In years previous we were running a thin line and this year we actually… were able to put some kind of rainy day money away, which is nice.”
A lot of the financial good news was because of the awards banquet and fundraiser, run by a committee this year.
“They did an excellent job of making that more fun and making it successful,” Fichter said. “I think in general, the way things are we’re just doing more work in house rather than contracting stuff out and just having a more hands on approach. I think we’re just being more careful with what we’re spending and where we’re spending it.”
It’s too early to say if all four of the major IMCA classes will return for regular race nights but the scheduling meeting with the major North Dakota tracks will take place in early December.
“We’re going to pick out some dates that work out in conjunction with them so we don’t race at the same time as they do,” Fichter said. “Also there’s a few nights in town in the area here that we don’t want to race over and we want to race in conjunction with. Once we know when we’re going to race the board will work out what classes will run.”
There is an interest in bringing back tours like Dirt Wars and Dakota Classic Modified Tour, as well as special races like the late models and sprint car events.
“We’re also looking at non-racing events, so that should be exciting if we can get those worked out,” Fichter said.
While they were able to put aside a bit of money, they will need to spend some on the sound system, which was heavily damaged in one of the summer storms. They are investigating the possibility of insurance to pay for the damages to the lights.
“We have been pricing out sound system and … lighting system,” Fichter said. “The most obvious one is the sound system. That has to be replaced regardless of what happens to insurance so we’re quoting different options to replace and upgrade that system.”
The lighting system may be going to a LED style.
“We definitely have to do something because that storm created a significant amount of damage,” he said.
