Josh King was just 8 years old when his dad, the late Jerry King, bought Florence Speedway in 1984.
“It’s been my entire life I’ve been involved with it,” King said.
The half-mile clay oval on U.S. 42 near Walton is still a family business.
Florence Speedway opened in the 1950s. Josh King is the track promoter, but he’s not the only family member involved – his mom, Mona King, works in the office, his sister, Kim King, works in concessions, and his wife, Jennifer, splits time between the two.
There’s more than the track – the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame opened in 2001. The 2024 inductees include drivers Todd Andrews, Al Purkey, Johnny Stokes and Ricky Weeks; Contributors To The Sports Steve Baker, Greg Fielden and Todd Turner; Lifetime Achievement winners Ashley Ness and Bob Sargent; and Baltes Memmer Award recipient Michael Rigsby.
Last weekend’s races tested King’s – and everyone else’s – patience; a nearly 30-minute storm delayed the start by at least an hour.
“It was one of those deals where we knew we could still get the track ready and race,” King said. “We knew we were going to lose an hour or two, but we knew we could get it in. We had a bit of an obligation to the fans and to the drivers to try that.”
Not cheap
Josh King worries about the economy’s effect on his business.
“Anybody who tells you they know what’s coming is lying to you,” he said.
Six car classes race at Florence: Late Model, Modified, Sport Modified, Crate Late Model (with a sealed engine that cannot be altered), Crown Victoria and Hornets/Sport Compact.
King said you can spend from $2,000 to $3,000 on a low-end Hornet car, usually a Chevrolet Cavalier, Chevrolet Cobalt, or Pontiac Sunfire, while late-model cars can run up to $100,000.
Increasing costs affect late-model teams the worst. King said many cannot spend so much, which means he cannot have late-model races every week; last Saturday’s was the first late-model event since March 30.
“It used to be, I would say, four or five years ago, we were running Late Models as a weekly division,” King said. “We would have 15, 20 cars at least a week. Now, we’re at the point (where) if we tried to have a weekly division, we’d be lucky to have six or eight.
“… You’ve got to be careful with what you charge the fans, ‘cause if you charge the fans too much, they stop coming.”
Late model races are scheduled for July 13, and the largest on the calendar—the 42nd annual Sunoco Race Fuels North/South 100 presented by Lucas Oil—is Aug. 9-10, but King has had to change his business model and schedule cheaper-division races.
“Because of that, we can charge less to get in, we can do more specials with the concessions, we can still keep drawing crowds that are looking for, let’s say, a cheap night out,” King said.
Derring-do, dating … and death
If you head about 10.5 miles south on U.S. 42 from Florence, you might hear as many stories as drivers and fans.
Corbin Dalton of Burlington is one. At 16, he is one of the youngest drivers, but it hasn’t mattered so far – he leads the Hornet/Sport Compact division by 14 points over Kevin McCoy of Independence.
Dalton is a racing veteran – he started driving at age 12 – and he’s the youngest family member to get behind the wheel; his dad, Justin Dalton, and uncle TJ Dalton occasionally race.
“It’s just embedded in my blood, man,” Corbin Dalton said. “My dad, my whole family, has been coming here to Florence forever.”
Corbin Dalton was 12 in 2020 when his car rolled five times at Moler Raceway Park near Williamsburg, Ohio. (Since 2022, drivers have had to be at least 13.)
“I think it was my sixth race ever,” he said.
Justin Dalton wasn’t worried then, and he’s not now.
“We build a very safe race car,” he said. “I’m very confident in the machine, the way we build them, that they’re solid and safe … I put the safety in front of speed.”
There’s also at least one tale of race track romance. Matt and Heidi Phlipot of Versailles, Ohio, were in the parking lot at least three hours before Saturday’s races.
“Our first date was to a track,” Heidi Phlipot said of the trip to Atomic Speedway in Chillicothe, Ohio.
Other stories are, well, gruesome.
The Phlipots have seen six fatalities, including the Sept. 10, 2016, death of Shane Unger during the World 100 race at Eldora Speedway in New Weston, Ohio. Matt Phlipot said Unger was trying to avoid a wreck.
“(Unger) tried to avoid a wreck, hit the wall, broke his neck,” Matt said. “You see a fatality, you don’t forget it.”
McCoy leads local drivers
Kevin McCoy of Independence was Northern Kentucky’s lone feature winner last weekend; he placed first in the Hornet/Sport Compact class.
Garrett Alberson of Las Cruces, New Mexico, had the best night. His first career victory in the Northern All-Stars Late Model Series netted him $6,200 – his second win of the weekend. (He brought home $10,000 for first place in the DIRTcar Summer Nationals on Friday at Farmer City Raceway in Illinois.)
Scotty Kincaid of Rising Sun, Indiana, won the Modified class, and Gary Rahe of Cincinnati won the G&G Express/Sport Mod feature.
Among local drivers, Corbin Dalton finished second in Hornets, Pete Holt of Independence placed second in Modified, Jeremy Freeman of Alexandria finished third in G&G Sport Modified, and Robby Hensley of Walton was fourth in late model.
Northern Kentuckians dominated the Hornet class – after Dalton and McCoy, Lucas Walters of Covington is third (57 points behind Dalton), and Erlanger’s Allen Sallee is fourth (79 points back).
Josh Rice of Crittenden remained atop the late model point standings. Holt and Daniel Dehner of Florence are 1-2 in Modifieds, Ethan Toedter of Florence is first in Crate Late Models (which didn’t compete over the weekend), and Andrew Corbin of Independence is first in G&G Sport Modified.
Corbin Dalton won the Florence Speedway Hornet class in 2021. He studies welding at Boone County Professional School on Conner’s campus, but he wouldn’t mind racing professionally.
“That would be a dream come true, for sure,” he said. “As long as I’m having fun, I don’t care where it takes me.”
For complete race results, visit florencespeedway.com.