Thompson Speedway Gets Major Face Lift
Thompson, CT — The roar of the racing engines has come to a halt. The swap meet vendors have left and the 2000 racing season is now over. Thompson International Speedway should be ready for its long winter’s nap.
However, since taking control of the historic race track again at the beginning of the 2000 season, owner Donald Hoenig and his son D.R. have not stopped in their efforts to improve their historic speed plant. Work has gone on all season long and now one of the major goals of this dynamic duo is about to be realized.
Palmer Paving of Palmer, Massachusetts has moved in a massive collection of equipment in preparation for the long-awaited re-paving of the speedway. “This is a project we have wanted to do for some time, said Hoenig. The current surface lasted over thirty years but had reached a point where we knew that the paving job would have to be done this year. It would have been nice to have been able to do it in the early spring, but with the situation as it was then, the paving job had to be postponed until now.”
Hoenig estimates that it will take about……..days to complete the project. (HOW IS IT GONNA BE DONE). Estimates are that it will take…..tons of asphalt to complete the race track.
“This is only the first phase of our project, Hoenig said. Next spring we will reshape pit road and do a lot of additional improvements. Our goal right now is to do the race track before bad weather sets in and then allow the surface to ‘cure’ during the winter months. This way, it will be race-ready for our ICEBREAKER on April 1, 2001.
The tack was built as the very first asphalt track in the United States by Donald Hoenig’s father, John. The 1938 hurricane, which devastated much of the region, destroyed the Hoenig family farm. Instead of rebuilding the farm, John Hoenig set out to construct his speedway. The result was the largest oval track speedway in the northeast, 5/8ths of a mile, which has remained as property of the Hoenig family since day one.
Sources: Russ Dowd/Thompson International Speedway PR