A few laps ahead of us

by Trey Nosrac

Over the past six months, this column has explored the future of our sport. It has been a string of posts centered around building new facilities and creating new ways to continue to play our game that deemphasize gambling. HRU archives articles, so my descent into insanity can be verified.

Some of the outlandish suggestions, presented in various writing formats, suggested that we build private, non-wagering, country club-like racing facilities to race our trotters and pacers. Tossed on the table were graphics, deck pitches, analogies, reasoning, financing, and suggested auxiliary businesses to complement and support the concepts.

After all this prodding and scribbling, the response was crickets. This lack of interest is understandable. Change is difficult. Even to my feverish, overoptimistic mind, these ideas felt like a stretch. They were simply rants from a loopy loose cannon.

Then, suddenly, a dash of validation when I stumbled upon a feature article in The New York Times, published on July 4, by Lawrence Ulrich. The article made me sit up in my hammock. Each paragraph made me say, “I suggested that for harness racing.”

The title of the article is The Rise of Racetrack Country Clubs: ‘Racing Is Golf on Steroids.’ The subheading reads: A motorsports club north of Miami, on former orange groves, is being built to cater to enthusiasts and well-heeled novices eager to hit the gas and pull some Gs.

One of the photos showed a bulldozer moving dirt for a racing oval.

Below, inside the quotation marks, you will find slightly edited snippets of quotes from the car racing article. Following the quote, in parentheses, are references to a column that appeared in HRU this year about harness racing.

“Porsches and other performance cars were all dressed up with no place to go – certainly not at the hurricane-force speeds for which they’re designed.”

(We don’t need all our harness horses to race blistering miles. There can be competitive racing without jaw-dropping speed.)

“Ari Straus and his family are plotting the latest country-club-style racetrack that lets members indulge. Mr. Straus and partners are spending $270 million to build a pair of motorsports circuits for members and their families.”

(A few very wealthy people probably hold our reins. They could easily create private harness horse racing systems and operations.)

“Having a life-changing experience with family and friends you care about is something we value exponentially more today.”

(Creating harness racing facilities centered around our magnificent horses will be a wonderful option in the fast-paced world.)

“Enormous earthmovers are carving out lakes and elevation changes, unheard of in notoriously flat Florida.”

(We should build new harness racing facilities where land is cheap, the weather is warm in the winter, competitors are not close, and where the novelty of racing harness horses could become an asset.)

“…drivers explore the limits of their cars, with maximum perceived risk but low actual risk.”

(New facilities should lean into participation and socialization as much as is reasonable.)

“…why isn’t there a country club for car guys? How do I get that same passion, adrenaline, and camaraderie? Golf is OK, but racing is golf on steroids.”

(New forms of turning passionate hobbies into more fulfilling activities will be on the menu for smart people, and harness horse racing is a perfect fit.)

“…they offered lifetime memberships, with no dues, to 50 founding members for $100,000 each. Several clubs have followed with higher fees and monthly family dues…”

(Trey never imagined this kind of money for participants. His budgets were much more modest)

“…another model pioneered by Autobahn: selling real estate to provide capital for development, including lavish clubhouses, lofts or homes with track views, and garages to store cars.”

(Development and real estate investment at a harness racing facility was the thrust of one column, but Trey added RV and campgrounds and subsidiary money-generating operations.)

You get the gist.

There are dreamers in a sport with many similarities to ours. At this moment, car racing entrepreneurs are scraping out racing ovals and building facilities. The creators are actively finding new ways to ply their passion. This is reassuring. Maybe the ideas are crazy. Maybe Trey is crazy. Maybe nothing ever happens. But history sometimes makes yesterday’s lunatics look like, well, not lunatics.

Vroom, vroom. Let’s go. Let’s keep an eye on this other form of racing and see what we can learn. Now, back to the hammock.