Abts looks to get Dodge County Speedway up to speed

If one were to have a conversation with Chris Abts, it wouldn’t take long to realize that he has a life-long passion for racing. Ever since he was a kid, Abts has spent a majority of his life around a racetrack, particularly the Mississippi Thunder Speedway in Fountain City, Wisconsin.
Abts and his father would routinely make the 20 minute drive across the border when he was young and would park along the highway to see all the race cars drive by on their way to the track. On one special night, he would take place in the kiddie parade prior to the races at the track. From there, Abts had developed his passion.
“I got to sit in one of the race cars during the parade,” Abts recalled. “Sitting in that car really got me hooked.”
Since then, Abts has been racing all across Southeastern Minnesota, Western Wisconsin and Northern Iowa since 2012. His schedule has included about 45 races a year, but was dialed back to about 30-35 races this year. Because of that experience, he’s seen plenty of racetracks during his career, but also has seen several of them shut down as his career has gone along.
The Winona County Speedway in St. Charles was one of the tracks to which Abts was a frequent visitor, but closed its gates for good back in 2011. A year later, the Dodge County Speedway would also shut down, prompting Abts to spring into action to try and save some of these venues.
“[The Winona County Speedway] was one of those Saturday night tracks that I used to go to,” Abts explained. “So when I saw that Kasson was shutting down here, the fair board approached me and I wanted to get involved.”
After working as a race director in Fountain City for a couple of years, Abts tackled the challenge in Kasson and has been trying to promote the races at the speedway since the 2015 season.
“We obviously want to see our sport grow,” Abts stated. “But when your forums are shutting down, it’s trending in the wrong direction.”
As of right now, Abts is rolling out a soft schedule to see what the local market is like. Once the trial period is over, the hope is that the Speedway can expand its schedule and eventually have races on Sunday evenings once again. Until then, there are plenty of questions that need to be answered.
“Do people want to come to the races on Sunday?” Abts asked. “Is it too much to ask for people to come down for a race on Friday or Saturday night? If people are interested, we’ll continue to bump things up. We’re not going to go into a full schedule next year if the fans aren’t showing up.”
Along with the attendance figures, the decision to expand the schedule will come down to other needs around the track such as a resurfacing of the quarter-mile dirt track and other op