Evans Mills Speedway
Construction began in 1966 on the Evans Mills Speedway, located near the Fort Drum Army base in New York State. The first race finally took place in early August, 1967 and Guy "Shorty" Robinson was the first ever feature winner. Fred Gibson was the inaugural track champion.
The original owners were a group of Booneville, NY residents, but the majority owners were Bobby Zeigler and his brothers Dick and John, along with Watertown, NY businessman Art Parker. Local radio DJ George Nehr was the first announcer but later announcing duties were taken over by John Burr which is the first time that he had ever announced a race. John Burr was also a minor shareholder with the Booneville, NY group.
Dust was always a problem because of the Sunday afternoon racing and lack of equipment to prep the track due to a limited budget. Because of the dust problem, Evans Mills Speedway was paved in 1968. The paving delayed the season opener at Evans Mills until late June of 1968, and Gary Reddick was the first winner at the newly paved Evans Mills track.
Evans Mills tried to run Saturday nights in 1969, directly in competition with the Watertown Speedway. Poor attendance forced management to switch to Friday nights and then back to Sundays in June of 1969.
During the late 60's it was not uncommon for teams to run the same car on the dirt at Watertown as they did on the asphalt at Evans Mills. However, in the early 70's more and more teams were building either dirt or asphalt cars which caused the fields at Evans Mills to shrink.
In 1971, Evans Mills once again decided to run on Saturday nights, directly in competition with the neighboring Watertown track. It only took one week for the owners of Evans Mills to reconsider....they switched back to Sunday nights.
As the 70's progressed the track began to lose its fan base, mainly because of the area drivers decided to stay with the dirt surface. The expense of asphalt racing, and the fact that asphalt tracks were beginning to struggle and either fold or convert to dirt added to the Evans Mills Speedway headaches.
Declining attendance, and lack of drivers support prompted the Zeigler brothers to lease out the speedway to Art Parker. In a promotional opportunity, Parker advertised free admission to the speedway because he wanted people to come and see his track. Unfortunately for Art Parker, even with the advertised free admission, only thirty people showed up to watch the event. That was enough to discourage Parker, who in turn walked away from it. Ron White, who was racing at the area tracks, and his father Francis eventually purchased the track from the Zeigler family and converted it back to dirt.
After just 2 seasons in operation, Francis White became ill, and passed away. Soon after, Ron traded the track to a real estate investor that was never interested in racing, so the track sat dormant.
Former Watertown Speedway racer Wendell Turcotte later purchased the place, with backing from local businessman Walt VanTassel. Turcotte and VanTassel ultimately had a falling out, and VanTassel bought out Turcotte. When the dust settled, VanTassel paved the track once again.
Currently, VanTassel owns the track, and has leased it out since the 2004 season to Billy and Charlie Caprara. The track has since be renamed Thunder Alley Speed Park.
