Tales from the track
Races aren't the only interesting finds at Citrus Co. Speedway.
By BRIAN SUMERS
Published July 16, 2006
On warm mid-summer Saturday evenings, just before day turns to night in a secluded spot just outside of downtown Inverness, hundreds gather on uncomfortable wooden bleachers.
A slick race track sits below, its pavement heated by lofty daytime temperatures. Cars scoot by, their drivers fighting for small earnings and bragging rights.
For 51 years, the Citrus County Speedway has been a fixture here, providing relatively low-cost entertainment and pretty good racing.
Along with the hobby stocks and late models, the track is rich with characters who come every Saturday as fans, workers and volunteers.
They come because they love racing - short track-style.
The Times spent a recent Saturday evening at the track, chronicling the nights of a few key players. Here are some of the folks we found.
THE CONCESSIONAIRE
Crisp french fries, dusted with a light covering of salt, sit awaiting customers under dual hot lamps.
The fried potatoes are big sellers here, dished out to race fans by Elise Simsay, a middle-aged woman who had a constant string of sweat forming on the back of a yellow shirt.
Sometimes, she hears what her customers order. More often, she does not.
A fixture at local racetracks since age 15 when she would repair fenders for friends, Simsay relies on lip reading to decipher dinner orders as late-models whiz by on the track.
The chicken strips and fries combo is popular, according to Simsay, partly because the price is right. Just $5.50 gets race fans a full, if calorie loaded, dinner.
Sweet tea adds an extra buck to the cost, but many customers can't resist. Simsay's concession stand, a bi-level trailer located on the pit side of the track, serves 11 gallons of the tasty drink every Saturday.
For two years, Simsay, 48, has spent her Saturday nights with three other women in this cramped spot.
That's long enough to know to prepare for the rush of customers who attack in the intermission between the final heat and the first race.
The days are long - she arrives at 2 p.m. and leaves close to midnight - but she does not dread them.
"We have fun," she said. "We really do. I look forward to Saturdays. Girls night out."
Still, with the fryer and grill going, the women get mighty hot, even with the lone fan circulating air.
Four weeks ago, the temperature hit 101 degrees.
How did Simsay know?
The health inspector told her.
THE GENERAL MANAGER
An assistant comes frantically knocking at the door of Don Cretty's racing trinket-filled office.
One driver has encroached onto another's pit slab and refuses to move.
As the supreme boss of the Speedway, Cretty could leave his office and start threatening.
Instead, he calmly tells his deputy to find another spot for the offender's neighbor.
Conflict solved.
"It's better to deal with it in other ways than to fight with people," said the man everyone has called "Critter" since he graduated from Citrus High in 1978.
Informally dressed in shorts and a gray T-shirt, Cretty, 45, directs race-night activities each Saturday and controls about 20 employees.
He enjoys the part-time job but is honest about why he took it two years ago after a stint as technical inspector.
"I won't tell you a lie," said Cretty, also the parts manager for Citrus County. "I'll do all I can to make an extra buck."
Still, there are easier ways to supplement his income than frantically running around a racetrack twice a week.
I get phone calls all day long," he said. "It's a 24-hour-a-day job.
And it can be scary.
At the first race this season, a throttle stuck on a modified, sending the car off the track and toward Cretty's office.
"I was panicking," he said. "I hauled butt down there."
The driver was okay. But Cretty always knows the "big one" could happen on his watch."
Nonetheless, he will not give up his side job, the one he hopes will allow him to retire in 10 years to the mountains of North Carolina.
He and his wife, Grace, already have bought property. And Cretty has scoped out a track 15 minutes away where he can spend his final years.
THE RACE TEAM
Gary Penney's job as an auto mechanic puts money in his pocket. His job as a crew member on the No. 53 drains it away.
On this steamy Saturday evening, Penney lies beneath a green-and-black open-wheel modified, his blue-jean clad legs dangling above the pavement.
No one is paying him for parts and labor. And for one night each week, he does not care.
"You've got to hear the cars rumble a little bit," said Penney, 49, of Largo.
Tonight, he's puzzled as he tries to figure out why the No. 53 won't run in reverse.
The prognosis is not good, though Penney promises the car will race even if it cannot travel backward. Still, his driver gives him a hard time.
"The transmission is falling out," Doug Miller, 36, said with a laugh. "But it's all right."
This is a typical Saturday night for KMA racing, a team comprised of three men from Pinellas County competing in their first full season in Citrus.
Winning is their goal, but no one frets about a middle-of-the-pack finish as long as they can enjoy a hamburger and post-race beer or two.
"Track junk food," Penney calls it.
These three just like to have fun.
Miller, an industrial mechanic in Largo, plays with his son Kadin, a toddler who runs around the pit slab laughing, or when he falls down, crying.
And nearby, crew chief Curtis Keith, 23, struts without his shirt, showcasing the tattoos on his arms.
He might be the only crew chief with a tongue ring.
THE FANS
High above Turn 4 two men sit, perched on seat cushions beneath a maroon and white umbrella.
Almost every Saturday, you'll find Ed Smillie, 79, and friend William Burch, 76, here watching racing and making fun of each other.
Burch is a relative rookie. He started coming about 15 years ago when he moved to Citrus after retiring from a General Motors plant in Indianapolis.
Not a bad pedigree. But it can't compete with Smillie.
A fixture at the track since 1966 when he moved to Hernando to work at what it is now Progress Energy, Smillie knows where to find the best seats.
"We can see everything," he said above the roar of the cars. "It only took us 10 years to find this out."
Smillie rattles off the list of improvements from the past 40 years: New wooden bleachers. More stands. Improved bathrooms. New lights. Better food.
Both men agree the advances have helped. But that's about all they agree on.
Family friends since they were children, Smillie and Burch bicker like an old episode of Abbott and Costello.
Such as when someone asks whether Smillie still keeps in touch with anyone from 40 years ago. Before Smillie can respond, Burch answers.
"Most of them that knew him then are dead," Burch said with a hearty laugh.
Indeed. But Burch and Smillie are still going strong.
And they can't think of anywhere else they would rather be.
"When you get old," Smillie said, "this is what you do."
THE ANNOUNCER
The oxygen tank, like his deep baritone and sarcastic humor, accompanies Larry MacMillan everywhere.
Even to the Speedway press box.
At 70, nearly two decades after announcing his first race here, MacMillan refuses to let emphysema slow him.
And so he sits in his swivel chair, an oxygen tank under his left arm and a tube resting just above his mustache.
Because he no longer can walk much, MacMillan can't gather the juicy gossip from drivers on pit road. But he is a legend, so news usually gets to him anyway, and he is not shy about sharing it with the crowd.
A former radio show host, MacMillan peppers his commentary with acerbic comments, sometimes directed at drivers.
Even his grandson is not immune.
By now, most fans knows Erik MacMillan, 17, is having a tough rookie season.
They heard it over the loudspeaker.
"I'll brag about him when there's something to bring about," MacMillan said via the microphone.
The caustic side is nothing new for MacMillan, a former pack-a-day smoker who said he spent 11 years in the Navy before various careers selling cars, hosting radio shows, dabbling in real estate and selling title insurance.
His first announcing gig came 48 years ago, with micro midgets at the Lions Cub Speedway in Pinellas. Then it was onto Sunshine Speedway, for a stint announcing 1930s and '40s era coupes.
Nearly half a decade later, MacMillan has no plans to give up.
"They'll probably have to carry me out of there in a box," he said.
He is a local celebrity. And he knows it
The shirt he wears, complete with a checkered flag pattern, says merely, "Larry, Announcer."
No last name needed.
THE SAFETY WORKER
A 10-week-old pit bull roams freely through the pit area.
His name: Smoke. Same as Tony Stewart's nickname.
"You got to have a racing name if you go to the racing," said his owner, 23-year-old Heather Rehm.
The puppy may not know yet because this is his first race, but he has joined a racing family.
Rehm's fianc, Shane Butler, drives the No. 41 sprint car and though she sometimes races, she works the safety team this night.
Wearing a red fire retardant suit, Rehm patrols the infield during the sprint races, waiting for a wreck. She also helps drivers with little stuff, such as tightening their seatbelts just before the green flag drops.
But it's the big crash that scares her most.
She has seen one before, about five years ago when a car caught fire at DeSoto and she and her sister put it out. The driver escaped with burns on his arms.
"Your heart goes through your throat," she said. "All you want to do is make sure they're all right."
The safety crew can be boring, but Rehm hopes she's never needed.
She'd rather play with Smoke.