By Karl Haglund
One night at I-35 Speedway I was in the infield when I started getting dive-bombed by a couple of barn swallows that had made a home in the scale shack.
I did a few ducks as the birds made their intentional descent towards my large, possibly oversized head and started walking away slowly. There was a packed grandstands right across the front stretch from me and my goal was to not draw too much attention to the ordeal. I didn’t want to dive to the ground and army-roll away. I also did not want to try to ward off the hatred from the skies with frantically waving arms and light sobbing. I just didn’t want to get pegged in the head or draw the attention of announcer Jerry Van Sickle or any of the spectators. A quiet exit from the battle ground was my goal.
I successfully made my exit and found promoter Joe Ringsdorf standing by his 4-wheeler. I told him of my ordeal and he said. “They won’t hit you; just try not to look at them.”
I thought to myself, “Try not to look at them? …Can these birds sense my fear by looking in to my eyes as they dive towards my Pantene protected scalp? If I stare in to their eyes will they somehow inhabit my soul? Do barn swallows have the power of mind control? Will looking at them somehow goad them in to a seed-fueled fury of feathered hatred?” I had to know.
“Why should I not look at them?” I carefully asked Joe.
Joe gave me a funny look and said, “If you don’t look at them, you won’t see them, and they won’t bother you,”
Common sense.
Joe was born and raised in Kossuth County; which is the county responsible for the odd number of 99 Iowa counties (look it up). The thing to do for young kids in the Algona area was to go to the races. That’s what Joe and his friends did.
Joe got hooked on racing early and started driving Enduro cars before switching to regular racing. He then switched roles to car owner.
“I drove for a little while and then had other drivers drive for me. I wasn’t a very good driver.”
It was as a car owner that Joe was kicked out of I-35 Speedway for life. There was a bit of confusion with a couple of engine claims in the sportsman division which left Joe at odds with the promoter of the time.
Richard Simpson was driving a new sportsman car for Joe and was at I-35 one weekend when Joe was off biking across Iowa in RAGBRAI. Simpson asked Joe what he should do if he got claimed. Joe told him to sell even though it was a very nice motor. Joe was under the impression that the promoter of the time John Tisor would have his back.
“Well, Tisor had told me ‘you don’t have to worry about the claim, I’ll take care of you’ so that’s why I told the driver to sell. I was told there wouldn’t be a claim in that class.”
Simpson was claimed and sold.
Joe added, “The following week we went over and got claimed again. I said ‘Man, I can’t believe this!’ Everybody knew we had a brand new motor in so I said ‘I’m not leaving the track until Kaiser comes down here.’ I remember they sent the modifieds out and I was still standing on the front stretch. Finally he came down there and I said ‘I just need you to tell me that you lied to me. You told me I’d never get claimed.’ So he said ‘I lied to you’. We turned the claim down and got booted out.”
Joe started promoting in Algona around 1995. The next year he took up Fairmont and then the next year he took over I-35. If you’re a fan of Internet forums you have no doubt read his name. Joe has his critics. Joe had this to say about whowon.com.
“When you’re a race promoter you don’t go on there. If someone has something to address with me, they need to do it in person, otherwise I won’t hear about it or read it. If you’re a race promoter you don’t go on whowon.”
The biggest challenge for Joe is also the best part of it all - the people. “When you have promoted 10 or 12 years you get to know the drivers pretty well and you appreciate their loyalty. As long as you have a good payoff and treat them fair and with respect.”
“The fact is you deal with a lot of great people which is a lot of fun. But, it’s the same minute people that are upset with whatever happens each week. It kind of wears on you. They can go out on a racetrack and crash their car in to a cement wall and somehow it’s gonna be your fault. As expensive as it is you hate to see anyone wreck a car, but that happens. A lot of the time the promoter gets blamed.”
Joe is not a one man show. His wife Marian is by his side throughout it all. “She’s really important.”
“She’s the heart and soul of the whole thing. She does all the paperwork, all the bookwork, runs the concession stand. It’s endless work that she does.”
In the off season Joe sells advertising for his tracks and visits the occasional swap meet. Joe and Marian also love to go to Florida in February. This past winter they did not get to make the trip. Marian was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which put a lot of things on hold.
Marian is more than a business partner she is Joe’s wife. Each week they make the trip to Omaha where Marian undergoes chemotherapy. You can hear the worry in Joe’s voice when he talks about it. “It’s just kind of a… pray for the best and pray for some new drug that can take care of her. It’s just not a good cancer to have.”
Joe and Marian are two of the nicest people in the business as far as I am concerned. They always greet me with a smile and it is obvious to me that they are both doing what they enjoy. If you talk to Joe in the infield after a race you will see that above everything else Joe is a fan. It is easy to imagine Joe as a young kid in Algona watching the races with his friends because he seems to get the same feeling all these years later.
I remember early in the year, I-35 raced on a night when not too many other tracks were racing. It was pretty obvious that the soft track was not holding up to the cars very well. Joe came over to me at one point and laughingly said, “Who the heck is the promoter at this place?”
Racing makes me feel 10 years old again and it is encouraging to think that I am not alone.
I wish Joe and Marian the best and continue to keep them in my thoughts and prayers as they go through a very difficult time. I ask you all to do the same.
What’s your story? whatsyourstory@mchsi.com
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