Gary will be returning with a new blog post on May 4. This week, he’s asked race announcer Randy Kane to guest blog. RCN-TV viewers should recognize Randy from the Grandview Speedway broadcasts airing April through August each year. Click here to read Randy’s bio from the RCN-TV “Our Broadcasters” page.
With the arrival of the month of April, it’s finally time to say, “Gentlemen, Start Your Engines,” on the local level.
In Bechtelsville, PA, it’s time to begin the racing season on the high-banked, third-mile dirt oval known to all as Grandview Speedway. For Grandview it is the 53rd consecutive season of promoting racing events. For RCN TV, it is the 15th consecutive season of covering the racing at the track. That marriage, in simple terms, has been a very good one.
RCN TV has covered local racing for many years, starting out with local competition at the now-gone Nazareth Raceway back in the early seventies. It was a marriage that lasted some 17 years. From there they mixed in events on the now-also-gone Nazareth National Speedway, as well as races at the Pocono Speedway.
Eventually, RCN TV headed south to racing asphalt coverage at Flemington Fair Speedway, but that track also closed up after only about three years of television programming. From there, it was on to Berks County along Route 100 and the racing at Grandview.
The years have just clicked off quickly and it hardly seems like 15 years have passed. Over those years award-winning RCN TV coverage has offered viewers a lot of different divisions to watch. Big and small block Modified racing, Sportsman, Sprint Cars, Midgets, Late Models and much more. All rolled into one, it sure has developed into a very popular program.
Drivers love to watch the racing coverage. Fans love it. Potential sponsors, too. Race teams use the subject of television coverage to try to attract potential sponsors. A sponsor sees television coverage as a great selling point to spit out the word about their business. It gets the potential sponsor’s name into the conversation and just the mentioning of the sponsor’s name gives them the reward that was sought in the first place.
On television these days, you can watch drag racing and NASCAR coverage and all sorts of racing, actually. Racing truly has blossomed. The thing is that RCN TV has been doing it for a long, long time and RCN TV is one of the first in the country to offer it to their viewers. You don’t find local short-track dirt track coverage anywhere on your channel choices, unless it is a special, tape-delayed event. RCN TV has found a formula that works. Roughly six events a season, bringing a good sampling of what the track has to offer. The program offers news, driver interviews, replays of dramatic moments, lap-to-lap coverage, all the feature races, plus the qualifying events. Just enough to give everybody a taste, get the viewer interested and, hopes are, that they make it to the track a time or two and watch in person.
With the weather improving, tracks all over the area, asphalt or dirt, are on schedule to swing open the gates and get the season started. Grandview, though, it is special. Grandview is old school. It’s dirt track racing and it is not a lot of flash or confetti. It is just good, close, competitive competition. It gets your blood pumping. Gets your heart racing and gets everyone watching awfully excited. The cars kicking up large chunks of clay into the air. That smell of racing fuel. The roar of the high-powered racing engines. Cars going at it, trading paint in each corner as they race wheel-to-wheel. It goes on unmatched.
There’s so much there to offer the viewers and you can watch it all, while it unfolds right before your eyes on RCN TV. Local auto racing’s been there and available now for over 30 years. That’s a lot of laps and a lot of coverage throughout the years.
It’s April and time to get those engines started. This year marks a total of 15 years at Grandview Speedway and that’s only a small part of the story. Local auto racing and RCN TV, it simply has been a long and also a very successful marriage. Indeed.