Never a dull moment Racing community celebrating 50 years of getting down and dirty at Victory Lane Speedway By: Joshua Frey-Sam Posted: 5:46 PM CDT Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023 Last Modified: 9:15 PM CDT Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023 Updates

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In the 90 minutes leading up to the first race, Pat Mooney will make the same visit to each pit to dig up interesting factoids on racers and their crew, assume his position in the broadcast booth on the same barstool and prepare his voice for a three-hour call, just as he’s done for the last 37 years as the track announcer at Victory Lane Speedway.

Thursday is supposed to be another jam-packed slate at the 4/10-mile dirt track that rests just south of Winnipeg, 13 kilometres down Highway 75. Five of the six usual vehicle classes — Four cylinders, WISSOTA Modifieds, WISSOTA Midwest Mods, WISSOTA Pure Stock, Super Trucks and the always thrilling WISSOTA Late Model — are set to crash, bang and test the limits at speeds upwards of 177 km/hr, to the joy of 3,000 spectators in the grandstands, until weather conditions forced plans to come to a screeching halt.

Weather cancellations are one of the challenges of racing, one Victory Lane Speedway has experienced too many times during its 50-year history, which it celebrates this season.

Dirt-track racing has been a summer pastime in Manitoba since the first green flag was waved in 1953 at Whittier Park in St. Boniface.

Victory Lane Speedway has since become a mainstay in the province, opening in 1973 after Peter Vernaus poured his life savings into a vision of transforming a cornfield into one of the best — and largest — tracks in central Canada.

Perhaps no one in the province knows the lay of the land at the historic speedway as well as the 69-year-old Mooney, who spent his childhood attending race meets at the now-shuttered Brooklands Speedway in Winnipeg.

He’s worked under all four ownerships and outlasted three name changes — Winnipeg Speedway (1973-1994), Victory Lane Speedway (1995-2005), Red River Co-op Speedway (2006-2020), then back to Victory Lane Speedway in 2021 — and his time at track goes back to its inception.

After Brooklands shut down earlier that year, Mooney bought his own car to race at the new track in St. Adolphe in 1973. He raced for several seasons before retiring from the cockpit to raise a family.

Mooney assumed a job as the flagman in the early 1980s to stay involved in the sport, then wedged his way into the role of track announcer, which he calls “the best job at the track.” As Victory Lane Speedway celebrates five decades of operation this season, its longest mainstay hasn’t wavered on his feelings about the job he once so desperately coveted.

“I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve really enjoyed it,” said Mooney, who switched to working the gig in a part-time role in 2021 after 35 years as the voice of the track. “I’ve always said it’s the best job in the place, and it’s something I really enjoy.”

Darren Pallen has since taken over as the main voice of the track, but Mooney will fill in periodically.

Mooney is one of many draws that make the weekly show one of the top entertainment gems Manitoba has to offer.

Tickets have remained relatively affordable for the whole family to attend (kids 10-and-under are free, students 11-15 are $10 and adults/seniors go for $20 per ticket) while upwards of 100 drivers rev their engines and fling dirt in every direction — sometimes into the crowd — for a few hours, injecting a shot of adrenaline into the veins of those in attendance for 16 evenings every Thursday from May to September.

“It’s exciting all the time,” said Mooney. “And I don’t mean every single race, every minute of the evening, but every evening people can go there and watch exciting action.

“It’s dirt-track racing, anything can happen. Of course, the fans like the crashing and bashing but, ultimately, the racing is very good quality racing and it’s exciting all the time.”

“It’s exciting all the time… And I don’t mean every single race, every minute of the evening, but every evening people can go there and watch exciting action.”–Pat Mooney

Derek Pollock has raced at Victory Lane since 1999 and plans to complete every race held at the track this summer. He even revved it up at the speedway’s official 50th Birthday Party event on July 27, where he finished third.

The 52-year-old has spent many days at the speedway, holding a brief stint as chief general manager and promoter in 2008, while racing anything from pure stocks to street stocks, super stock, enduro and super truck vehicles. Pollock said there’s no place he’d rather be on a Thursday evening.

“Victory Lane, to me, is the Thursday night thing to do,” said Pollock. “It’s my Calgon moment, where you put the helmet on and you forget about the world’s troubles and you’re out there for three hours of turning left and it’s a great place.

“It’s the fans, the track conditions, racers — I’ve sat on both sides of the fence as a (fan) and as a driver — it makes you so proud to see a full-packed grandstand with people on a Thursday sitting there in the sun having a couple of hotdogs and some beverages.”

Victory Lane’s emphasis on making each evening an event for the whole family — which has been carried over by its current owners, Brenda and Robert Stutsky — can not be underscored enough for its sustained success, according to Pollock.

Guy Budel echoed Pollock’s sentiments and went a step further to say the track is multi-generational, owing to its evolution, which has allowed it to remain relevant in the province.

Budel managed the speedway from 2008-2012 under the ownership of Derrick and Bev Weiss. The facility saw noticeable improvements during that stretch, including adding two viewing suites for fans, cladding the main building, expanding the pit area while buying an additional five acres of land, revamping the concessions and bathrooms and building a $350,000 concrete grandstand with aluminum seating.

“That was kind of our dream, our vision, our goal, was to take an old rundown stock car track and make it into a viable business, a viable sport for the spectator, the driver and the sponsors,” said Budel, adding the Weisses had been the most resourceful ownership since Vernaus.

“Everything grew exponentially. As the facility improved, the sponsors wanted to be a part of it, the racers grew in the sense of car counts and the spectators grew because they liked what they saw.”

Budel credited the Stutsky’s for continuing to run the facility at a high level, noting “it’s a business of passion, not return on investment.”

Budel said the significance of Victory Lane Speedway’s 50th anniversary can not be overstated.

“It’s huge. Let’s look at any business — how many businesses have been around for 50 years?” he said.

“In this day and age… pretty tough industry to make a living in and to do any kind of capital improvements.

“For that facility to be relevant — and it’s an amazing facility — to be as good as it is and as attended as well as it is, (proves) it’s relevant and (proves) it’s still able to maintain itself just from the infrastructure.”

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jfreysam