ONA, WV-Upon consultation with paving contractor Brandon Terry Paving LLC and assessing damage done from this past weekend’s floods, Ona Speedway management has made the decision to push the start of the 2025 season back one week with Putnam County Bank Opening Night now set for Saturday, May 3rd.
A number of things led to this decision having to be made. First, the partial track repave was set to take place this week after weather didn’t cooperate last week. However, concerns with how wet the grounds are from last weekend’s major flood plus no window of consecutive days that are warm or dry enough to pave this week has made it impossible for paving to happen this week.
With no window to pave this week and a prior commitment from the paving contractor for the week of April 14th, the partial track repave is now scheduled to take place the week of April 21st which does not leave a big enough window to hold Putnam County Bank Opening Night on April 26th.
The February flood damaged a good portion of the pit fence and required clean up of track buildings. While track owner Bill Bauer nearly had the fence repaired from the February flood, this weekend’s flood has damaged another good portion of the pit fence and got water into even more track buildings, requiring more cleanup work. This weekend’s flood also littered debris on the track surface in turns one and two and the wet grounds have halted normal work that has to be done each year prior to the season starting. This has led to additional time needed to get the facility ready for events.
The positive news is that an anonymous donor has contributed more to the partial track repaving project. This will now allow a large portion of the length of the backstretch, 20 feet down from the guardrail, to be repaved and remove the infamous dip at the backstretch gate. This is in addition to the entire length of the frontstretch, 20 feet down from the guardail, plus a section in turn one and a large section of turn two that is going to be repaved. The speedway is extremely grateful to the anonymous donor for allowing this large extra section of paving to now take place.
“Mother nature just absolutely has not cooperated with us so far this spring”, stated track promoter/operator T. J. Layne. “We had a tight window to get everything completed to start the season April 26th and the unexpected flood last weekend and this week’s weather just closed that window. While we hate to have to push everything back a week, it is most definitely going to be worth the wait for everyone with the major investment/upgrades that are going into the track surface.”
The April 19th Test N’ Tune has also been postponed with the preseason Test N’ Tune now scheduled to take place on Thursday, May 1st. An additional preseason Test N’ Tune the week of April 28th could also be added to allow drivers to get more track time on the new surface. The speedway is also working on a plan to have private track rentals available on Saturday, April 19th with those details to be announced soon.
For more information visit www.onaspeedway.com.
