Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 25, 1993 TAG: 9308250171
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CALLAWAY LENGTH: Long
They come from Henry, Floyd, Franklin and Patrick counties, from Roanoke and Martinsville, and arrive hours before the 9 p.m. featured race.
The regulars get here early because they know a summer Saturday night at Whitey Taylor's speedway is more than just a night of car racing. It's a happening.
It's a couple thousand people standing for the "Star-Spangled Banner."
It's the announcement for next Saturday's $100 hot-dog-eating contest: "The rules are: If you throw up, you're outta here."
It's the management's offer of the only bologna burger in America with a guarantee: "If it does you away, and your family can prove it, we'll bury you for free."
And even after 56 people were arrested July 30, primarily for drinking in public, many race fans say the flavor of Saturday night in Callaway would be lost without a few cold beers.
"You look at NASCAR, you see them drinking," said Bassett resident Bobby DeHart, who was watching races at the speedway last weekend.
"If they crack down on drinking, lock the gates up - nobody will be here," DeHart said.
But this was the crackdown. Racing in Callaway, Taylor declared last week, would hereafter emphasize family values. Drinking at the speedway, at least officially, was proclaimed an activity of the past.
A sign Taylor posted on the gravel road into the speedway reinforced his earlier proclamation to the media: "Attention Race Fans: No Alcoholic Beverages Allowed on Premises."
Dozens of times throughout the evening, the speedway announcer warned patrons: "We do not allow drinking alcoholic beverages on the grounds here at Franklin County Speedway; it's not only the law, it's that we don't want it."
A man waiting in a concession stand line for fried chicken chuckled at the announcement. "He's just saying it because he knows there's undercover agents all over the place tonight."
Others wonder whether Taylor's declared goal of making the Callaway speedway "the only alcohol-free short track in America" was born of a genuine change of heart or a need to stay open.
Taylor is to appear in Franklin County Circuit Court today on a civil complaint that he is operating a public nuisance. Any steps Taylor has taken during the past few weeks to clean up the scene at the track might help him in court.
"Whatever goes on here goes on anywhere," Taylor said Saturday night. "I honestly think we got a pretty good handle on it, though."
DeHart and his friends sat in the bed of a pickup, backed up to the edge of a hill on the far side of the oval, thankful the no-alcohol policy wasn't too strict.
An empty Mountain Dew can sat by the wheel well at DeHart's feet, just in case one of Taylor's security guards looked in. A cooler was nearby. DeHart's real drink - a beer - was in a foam hugger.
Others standing around that part of the speedway were drinking, but they had their beer or whiskey in opaque plastic cups. The rule of the season at the speedway seems to be: It's all right to drink as long as you don't get caught.
Rocky Mount race fan Steve Lauth said most of the people who got arrested last month were being too obvious about drinking.
"I was standing right here, and you could see them pulling in - state cars, sheriff's cars," Lauth said of the raid.
"When they came in, I put my beer away 'til they left," said Lauth, sipping a beer from a plastic cup. "Anybody that got in trouble deserved it."
Brian and Lori Costa wouldn't pack a picnic dinner, load their three young children into the car and make the 40-minute drive from Roanoke if they thought other speedway patrons were too raucous.
"It's cheap," Brian Costa said when asked why the family comes to Callaway, "and it's probably the best racing around." Admission is $5, and children get in free.
Not everybody who comes here drinks. Nondrinking race fans generally want to make two points: The July 30 raid might have been necessary to calm down some of the rowdier fans, but the behavior at Franklin County Speedway is no worse than it is at most races.
"We were at Natural Bridge, and people were throwing beer bottles against the fence," Costa said.
Several patrons Saturday night listed race fans at Bristol, Martinsville and Natural Bridge - another track owned by Taylor - as being worse than those at Callaway.
"I don't drink, but it goes on everywhere else in the state of Virginia," said Joe Michael, a race fan from Rocky Mount.
"I don't think it's fair they tried to close the place down. I don't know what it is between Whitey Taylor and Quincy Overton, but every two years Quincy harasses Whitey."
Franklin County Sheriff W.Q. Overton denies he is trying to shut down Taylor's track, but the civil complaint Taylor faces today could force him to close the speedway for a few weeks.
Overton says he is trying to get Taylor to put a fence between the speedway's parking lot and the track itself. That fence, Overton thinks, would prevent race patrons from having ready access to whatever alcohol they have loaded into their cars.
Overton and Alcoholic Beverage Control Department officials have said complaints from speedway patrons about obnoxious drinkers became too numerous to ignore.
"I got into an argument with a friend of mine," said Capt. Bill Overton, the sheriff's son. "He said, `Gosh, people are going to go up there and drink a beer or two.'
"That's right," Overton said, "but we're not going to turn our backs, because people are going to say. `The sheriff doesn't enforce the law.' "
Many race fans question why, if drinking is illegal at Martinsville and other speedways without ABC permits, ABC authorities chose to raid Taylor's Callaway track.
They see the drinking that goes on at the speedway as being no different from the drinking at a Virginia Tech football game. And they blame a few young men for getting drunk every week at the races and drawing the complaints that prompted the raid.
"It's the same thing everywhere - you got people who drink, people who don't," said Ronda Turner of Floyd County. "There's idiots everywhere.
"We think everybody should go away and leave Whitey alone."
by CNB