New tower in operation At 4

                   New surface is ready!!
                                     At 64, the Beaver is celebrating.

Thursday, April 1st and it's Beaver Bob's birthday, but the racers get the present. The track is ground and polished and ready for clean up. Gary Enders, Billy Nees and Dave Weaver are doing the majority of the clean and prep. All day Friday will be spend dragging and spraying the National Event caliber starting line. Look for Cliffie to have the cars flying this weekend.

                                     WORKING INTO THE NIGHT

The Southeast Grinding and Grooving crew was working into the night to complete the grinding of the track. They finished the job at 9:00 on Wednesday.

Lance the tanker driver and TJ the grinder rider were tired but happy to finish their end of the job. They now move on to 75-80 Dragway to work their majic.

Charlie Freeburn begins polishing the left lane well into the night. Talk about a dusty job, this is one Mike Rowe of TV's Dirty Jobs should do. Charlie finished the job at 10:00 Thursday.

           We're on a roll!!
With the new scoreboards last year, a new tower by mid April, a change over to Pepsi products and now, no more bump in the right lane, I think we're going to have a really great year!! Add to that the new 100 MPH Extreme Club, the Racing for Rita "Friday verses Sunday" Holiday weekend and the two Pack the Track events, yes, it'll be another great year.

New tower in operation

At 4:00 PM on Friday the crew from Dave Hook Construction got the new tower up and operational. To finish a project this big in only four day is a super human effort and we want to thank everyone for their Herculean effort. In addition to the tower, all new lights were installed and an upgraded sound system and additional speakers. A special thanks goes out to Paul Treaster of Lepley's Electric of Lewistown who rewired the complete computer system. Then Joe Zampelli of Zampelli Electronics of Lewistown who upgraded the sound system and finally to our neighbor and fellow racer, John DiBartolomeo, who fabricated the tower lights and speaker stands plus the tower mounting brackets. All of these people pulled together to finish the project in only 4 working days!!!
By next Friday, the inside will be finished and ready for showing.

What a major improvement!!!
Thanks to Hook's Construction, Lepley Electric, Zampelli Electronics
and DRC Race Products

Third day progress report..

A red shingled roof will great everyone this weekend.

Finishing up the roof. Windows will be in by Thursday quitting time.

Second day progress report..

East side wall is lifted into place.

Sort of looks like a tornado hit the place.

The track side wall goes into place.

The new tower is looking good.
Look for a the tower to be in temporary mood this weekend. We'll have the windows in place and all of the timing system and PA system will be in operation, but everything else will be very basic. That translates into no permanent lighting and no air conditioning. Give us a week and it'll all be great.

Going ...Going ...GONE!!!

Dave Hook Construction crew begins to dismantle the tower at 9:00 AM

Back side walls are, "out of there".

Tower now has a nice airy feeling, right Dale?

Do you think they'll have is back together this week?

Dave Hook has his crew in high gear getting the tower finished.

Off comes the roof.

New insulated windows are delivered.

Fast Eddie was looking over the job. He said, "These boys have their work cut out for themselves". 40 years ago at 49 years of age, Eddie, Mike Seby and Mike Drodza, build the complete tower in 7 days.

No more floor.

At 2:00 PM, the tower is down!!

The second major improvement of 2010 is well underway on Monday at the Beaver. The tower, which was the longest standing tower in continuous operation, had served us well for 40 years. The new tower will be in partial operation this weekend and completed by the April 23rd race. Next on the agenda is the 10 additional 1500 watt Sports Lighters.

TRACK IMPROVEMENTS CONTINUE

On Wednesday, April 28th, Charlie Paige and crew installed the 10 additional 1500 watt Sports Lighters. The lamps were placed on the Bill Marks side of the pits and from the scoreboards down through the shutdown area. We also placed a couple of lights on the return road. The changes will be very apparent this weekend at the Vegas Fuel Friday Night Street Races.

Charlie and Beaver Bob go back to 1997 when Charlie along with his brother and Cliff Loss were in negotiations for the purchase of the track. The parties parted friends with Charlie moving on becoming the owner/promoter of the very successful Selinsgrove Speedway. Both Charlie and Beaver are passionate about their sport and it shows. Maybe it's because they're Ford guys.

The Beaver is up to date

Testing the system
Dial In Boards are back in operation as Kevin Shaffer, our BSD employee, leaves first in his Escort with Bob Brockmeyer out after him.

The entire track was re-wired with new infereds and center blocks being installed. We finally found and fixed the problems with the 60 and the 1000 foot timers. By the way, Bob Brockmeyer won the match race with Kevin.

The Beaver Kid's now have a new 1/8 mile finish line.

New finish line and the old "Pre-finish" line
It was discovered that the Beaver was always only 1315 foot since day one,
not the 1320 standard. On the plus side, the speed traps are now right on the money and equal side to side. All racers will see a minor difference in ET/MPH
Here's a hint for all of our racers, "Put more gas in your car this week".

The roll out is perfect and will stay that way due to new anchors
With all of the upgrades, Bob got the Beaver up to National Event standards.
At 0" the Pre-Stage is on, at 7" the Stage is on, at 11 1/2" Pre-Stage is off and at 18 1/2" the Stage goes out (ET Starts). Racers should now see a little quicker Reaction Time as the old set up was a little long.

Even Beaver Bob got into helping upgrade the track, along with Gary Enders they painted the staging area flat black to reduce any reflection.

Mike McCracken and Gary Enders re-located the traps in making the Beaver right up to snuff. All the intermediate timers and the finish line are within a 1/16 of an inch, side to side. Another issue that was corrected was the 60' timers that actually were a little long by 1/2 foot. So look for a little better times.

The Masters at work. Bob Brockmeyer and Paul Treaster re-wired the entire computer system to eliminate all of the gremlins.

Jason Derr conferred with Bob about getting all the run data.
Bob said he'll work on a system upgrade and make it available to us ASAP.

The Beaver, Bob Brockmeyer and John D. are all smiles now that they're finish with the long over do track tune up. All of the racers will welcome the upgrades.

The Beaver to National Events Standards
With all of the improvements that were made to the Beaver lately, Larry the starter guy, aka: Luau Larry, suggested we make our starting line look the part of the National Event caliber starting line that it has been transformed into since the grinding and polishing. Two full days of work made the transformation to an all new look. Wait until you see it, You're going to love it.

Finishing up the all new look. Todd said the color picked is perfect.

View from the tower at the work in progress

New JR Dragster Blue Line: Equals Do not touch the car past this line.

Graham Daddy Taylor, Cliffie Eicher, Larry the starter guy and Kevin put the finishing touches to make the Beaver up to snuff.

Another change was to make the new finish line a solid line.

More improvements:
Remodeled Dog House
Michelle gets a new Dog House
On Tuesday morning, Dave Hook construction with Dale Rhoads started on a complete remodeling of the 40 year old Dog House. The update will include a complete vinyl siding, all new windows, new door, lighting, interior, counter and cabinets plus a custom checker board floor. The outside will be finished by Flashback Friday with the interior completed by next weekend. With the completion of the Dog House, it now joins the new tower and gate booth in making a matching set. All the improvements make us proud to be Beavers.

TRACK IMPROVEMENTS CONTINUE
Week of May 9, 2011
Doug Garrison was on the job early Monday morning prepping the return roads for the new project. If all goes well weather wise, the Beaver will look a good bit different when everyone shows up this weekend.

The return roads will be three foot wider this weekend.

The project will go a long way to alleviate the stone issue. When completed it will help maintain the great traction that has been the talk of the pits this season.

On Wednesday, the return road was wider and ready for racers.

The pros from Cramer Paving were hot on the job laying the macadam.

April Derr's brother, Steve aka "Greenie" is making sure it's smooth.

Paving the entry area.

It sure looks wider, plus no stones on Mark's Men turn.

Matt is rolling the edges for a smooth transition.

NEW LOOK TO GREET RACERS

Cheryl, Larry the Starter Guy, Graham Daddy and Betty Taylor were hard at work making a big visual improvement at the Beaver,

On Thursday, May 26th, we started to change the look of the Beaver's starting line. Here's is what it was before.

And here's the new look. All of the concrete is now painted black.

Plus a new color combination to match the new Beaver signs.
The place is sure looking good!!