Toby Kruse resigns at Knoxville Raceway

I’m saddened and disappointed to hear the news about the resignation of Toby Kruse at Knoxville Raceway. I thought he was the perfect choice for the job, and he was my top candidate three or four years ago before Cappy decided to retire. When I first met Toby at Marshalltown Speedway in 2008 while covering racing for the Newton Daily News, I was impressed. He has this charismatic swagger, enthusiasm, professionalism, passion, and he is a polished speaker. He would make a great football coach. You don’t see people like that very often in our sport. Toby always answered his phone, e-mail, and texts. And over the last few days he hadn’t done that and I knew the rumors were true. I tried to call him again tonight but his voice mail picked up answering, “Thanks for calling Marshalltown Speedway.”

I worked well with Toby this season, and with John McCoy. They were both willing to listen to some of my ideas, like the Friday Nationals format, more transfers on Saturday of the Nationals, and I mentioned renaming the Sunday night race to something different than the Kickoff to the Nationals to the Capitani Classic. It was nice to have people hear your suggestions and appreciate them.

It’s widely known that Toby wasn’t the first pick of the fair board last fall. Chuck Spicer, VP at Iowa Speedway was their top pick, but they were not able to come to terms on a deal. That had the fair board scrambling.

Toby took the job with the understanding it was a one year contract and he could continue to operate the Marshalltown Speedway weekly and his other ventures, as the pay at Knoxville wasn’t enough to give up everything else and make a living.

Did you know Ralph Capitani retired in 1992 as a school teacher and collected his pension all those years on top of his pay from the track? And when he was teaching and working at the track, the race track was just a summer gig for him. Being the race director at Knoxville is a low paying job for a lot of work, and having to answer to 24 board members and 3 officers isn’t easy to deal with. Some folks refer to it as operating a track with one hand tied behind your back and I tend to agree with that statement.

The best thing Toby tried to implement this year was for the fair board members and employees to be polite, smile, and interact with fans better. The reputation of a grumpy cast of employees was well known and I think the track made significant improvements this year in that area.

What really sucks is that Toby leaves two weeks before the Late Model Nationals, which is the second largest attended event on the track schedule, and is by far and away growing quicker than any other event. What a PR mess that creates for the track and fair board.

So who is on the short list for the GM position? Looking back at my notes from a couple of years ago I have John McCoy, Tommie Estes Jr., Steve Beitler, Chuck Spicer, Craig Armstrong, Terry McCarl, Steve Sinclair, and Sam Hafertepe Sr.

Now I don’t see McCoy taking the job, and after talking to him about it on a couple of occasions, he is content where he is at not having to answer to the fair board and deal with politics. McCarl is still racing and politically I don’t think he fits the mold. You either love TMac or you hate him, and that isn’t a good fit in my opinion. Beitler is at Skagit and I don’t think he will move away from home. Spicer already said no once. Armstrong will ask for too much money. Sinclair runs the IRA and does well there, not sure if he would leave that post. I think it comes down to Hafertepe and Estes who were serious contenders last year and interviewed for the job. There could be someone else out of the box I’m not thinking of, but give me a few days to think.

The best possible solution, I hope there is time to rectify the situation and get Toby back.

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UPDATE 9/13/12 @ 8:10am CDT: Toby Kruse could be a candidate to be the VP of Operations at Las Vegas Motor Speedway with Chris Blair vacating that post recently. Toby has promoted dirt track races at LVMS for several years, in particular the IMCA Modified "Duel in the Desert" show which is coming up Nov. 7-10 and is one of the premeire events for that class and it pays $7,777 to win.
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UPDATE 9/13/12 @ 8:53am CDT: Another name from last year that was up for the GM poistion is Andy Adamcik who is currently the Marketing Director at Boone Speedway. He was the short track manager at Texas Motor Speedway, LVMS, and worked for Gearheads in Indy before that. He has family in the Knoxville area and has a business in Knoxville called Design Speed Shop, which is a logo design, print design, web development, t-shirt design, vinyl graphics, signage, etc.
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UPDATE 9/13/12 @ 9:15am CDT: My contact at the Knoxville ticket office confirms that Toby has officially resigned.
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UPDATE 9/13/12 @ 12:59pm CDT: Toby texted me and he is out until Monday. Guessing he is at his vacation home for a few days, which is in Las Vegas. Also some other names for a replacement I saw in my notes were Bob Baker and Shane Carson. Not sure Bob Baker would leave the NSCHoF&M, he has a sweet job there already. Not sure Carson would be interested, he used to promote the Oklahoma State Fair races. I think someone younger who has new ideas and lots of energy is the way to go. Also hearing that Tommie Estes is a candidate for the USAC competition director opening along with Ron Shuman.
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UPDATE 9/13/12 @ 3:41PM CDT: Knoxville Journal Express reporter Steve Woodhouse was able to get these quotes.

“He just had different ventures he wanted to pursue,” Marion County Fair Association President Bob Riggen said. “He was a good guy to work with.” The board has not begun to discuss finding a replacement for Kruse. That will likely happen at the next board meeting. Marketing Director Brian Stickel said the resignation should have no effect on the track’s final races of the season, the Late Model Nationals scheduled for later this month. He said the Late Model event will be “the best ever.”
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UPDATE 9/13/12 @ 3:44PM CDT: The next Marion County Fair Board meeting is scheduled for Monday evening October 1.
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UPDATE 9/14/12 @ 8:57AM CDT: Another possibile candidate is Craig Agan. Craig has been a driver, owner, has been a fair board member, and his work with the NSCHoF&M is well known. He is also currently on the Marion County board of superivisors. His skills as a politician, and past experience with the fair board might be a good thing. Down side is that his son Jon races and some people might think that could show favortism. But it wouldn't be the first time a driver raced that was related to someone at the track or fair board.
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UPDATE 9/14/12 @ 1:33PM CDT: Another candidate could be Knoxville Raceway Marketing Director Brian Stickel. I've worked well with Brian the past couple of years and I have only positive things to say about him. His current position is harder than most people imagine.
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