The Official Site of Area Auto Racing News and Len Sammons Productions Area Auto Racing News
Though Woodhull (NY) Raceway’s owner and promoter Ted White likes to keep a low profile, those who need to find him know where he is: ‘right down there outside turn four with some of the track crew’.
White has been in charge of Woodhull for nine years now and he’s a hands-on operator who addresses the needs of his property with hard work and a smile.
Short Track Super Series promoter Brett Deyo, who has now run three events at White’s track, has high praise for the Woodhull owner.
“Ted and his family are great to work with,” Deyo said. “They make it easy for the drivers and the Series.”
White said that this STSS race, this year run for the third time, is by far the richest race of the Woodhull season. “We do have a $3,000-to-win Modified race later in the year,” White added. “It’s a pretty big race for us.”
White admitted this night to being partial to his Woodhull regulars, hoping for good showings against the STSS guys.
“I’d like to see the money stay local,” he admitted. “But if one of them did win it, it would probably cost me a whole lot of money in beer for the guys after the race.”
White, 47, and his family have been good stewards of the track and property. In his previous eight years at the helm, he as been able to make significant improvements to the facility. He has also consolidated the Woodhull property over his years of track ownership. Through the purchases of adjacent land, a 160 acre parcel now exists.
On the property is a deep vein of natural clay and another of shale. White says he adds clay routinely during the course of the season and mines the shale for roadbed bases at times when he has acquired asphalt roadway millings which are then put atop the shale. It’s an ongoing process that White began soon after buying Woodhull. He is the facility’s third owner.
“I add clay every year, several times a year,” White said. “Just added a bunch more clay earlier this month.”
Ted White lives just across the border in Harrison Township, Pa. He had owned, then sold an automobile transport business, to his brother. White had also been in the garbage business. Though Woodhull occupies most all of his business energy these days, he also maintains a herd of 50 head of beef cattle on a Harrison Township farm.
White was fortunate enough to acquire a speedway property that was a turn-key operation in every sense and which had other advantageous assets. “The suites, 31 of them, were all here, the grandstand and the buildings,” White said. “I redid all of the concession stands, put in the homestretch concrete wall the first thing,” White said.
On the parcel of property behind the pit area that White owns, its former owner, Roger Dunn, is still growing corn. It speaks of the rhythms of life in this rural region where a gentleman’s agreement between neighbors can prevail.
The asset of a clay pit as well as a shale pit on Woodhull Raceway’s property is an advantage White recognized from the time he first looked into buying the track.
White admits that his car counts are off, particularly in the Small Block Modifieds this year.
“I thought about going with Big Blocks like Thunder Mountain and some of them have,” White said. “But I haven’t and it’s probably too late now.”
White demonstrated his showman’s side when he agreed to provide the pyrotechnics during the national anthem, four-wide salute and post-race Victory Lane ceremonies.
