One of my proudest accomplishments when it comes to racing was the four year run of the National Kidney Foundation Heartland Tour for a Cure racing series that ran from 1998 through 2001. And while I have some time here during the offseason and while we are all still pretty much "locked down" due to Covid, I wanted to go back and share some of the memories, highlights and even some of stories behind the scenes. For me, it it will be fun to tell these stories and I hope that you will find this trip down memory lane entertaining as well as we salute and digitally archive a racing series that helped those in need.
In 1997 our family business, Broeg and Associates a Direct Mail company that I had been running since my father Larry's unexpected death in 1990, had just suffered a crushing blow when the United States Postal Service decided to more than double the cost of postage on a certain size of merchandise samples. Perhaps you remember getting one ounce sample boxes of General Mills cereal (Trix, Lucky Charms, Raisin Nut Bran, Honey Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, etc., etc.) in your mailbox along with a coupon to save money on your next purchase at the grocery store? Well that was the nine of us coordinating each project with General Mills and the Post Office to get those samples delivered to you in the freshest manner possible. Over an eight year period we mailed out over 275 million of these samples with our biggest year being in 1994 when 74 million samples were sent out.
My father had developed a unique and efficient way to do this and we refined it over time, but it was the manner that the other cereal companies were sending out their samples that caught the attention of the USPS and it was that inefficient manner of handling the mail that the Postal Service considered when it came time to adjust their rates in 1997. My colleague at General Mills and I argued the increase all the way to Washington DC showing them why our method should not be included in this massive increase and General Mills closed the argument by stating that if the increase was passed they would never mail another sample again.
The full increase was approved by the Postal Service and while we did mail out one more job of one million pieces that was already in the works after it passed, General Mills kept their word and the Postal Service lost around $7.2 million dollars a year in postage from them. Even though it was nowhere near as targeted and successful as Direct Mail, it was now significantly cheaper for GMI to distribute their samples "in-store" or through Sunday newspapers in metropolitan areas.
We had other clients as well, but by 1997 General Mills made up over 80% of our revenue and since we were now completely frustrated with the Postal Service the difficult decision was made to close Broeg and Associates. To put a wrap on this lead in, the Postal Service came back to me in 2010 asking what they would need to do in order to get companies to start using the mail again for Merchandise samples and after once again giving them the details on how we used to coordinate and distribute the cereal samples, they came up with a new class of mail called Simple Samples that is completely based on our methods. If they had listened to me in 1997 there would have never been an NKF Heartland Tour for a Cure.
I formed a Limited Liability Corporation called J. Broeg Services LLC to finish out the Direct Mail work that we already had in the schedule as well as to perform some of my side jobs such as selling advertising for, and doing play-by-play broadcasts for our local radio station KILJ. Little did I know at that point that it would also be where I would run a racing series from.
I was in the car with my brother-in-law Loni Woodley who was living and working in Cedar Rapids at the time. Loni is the hardest working and most giving person that I know and at the time he was serving on the Board of the Iowa chapter of the National Kidney Foundation while working at Hupp Electric Motors. The NKF of Iowa had partnered with Hawkeye Downs that past summer to have a race night where the fans were encouraged to learn more about the importance of having a signed Organ Donor card and they also had some fun pre-race activities to raise some money for the NKF.
Knowing my love for racing, and knowing that at this point I was looking for my next challenge in life, Loni asked if there would be anyway that I could help him schedule nights like this at other area race tracks. Apparently I had already been considering the possibility of starting a series for both the Modifieds and the Hobby Socks for two years, as you will see from the original press release, (at this point I don't remember that!) so I took him a step further and proposed an actual race series that would get the drivers involved as well at these events.
That was just the start of the process as we traded ideas back and forth until we felt that we had a pretty solid plan and it was there that I have to give credit to Loni Woodley for actually giving birth to the Heartland Tour for a Cure. I can't tell you which one he did first, but there were two major steps to take. A big thank you goes to the Executive Director of the NKF of Iowa at the time, Jodi Enger, who was excited to not only help to get the tour rolling, but she also served as the primary volunteer at most of the events in the inaugural season of 1998. Of course there were hurdles to clear with the NKF, primarily the concern over liability at each event, but we resolved that by requiring each and every track to provide us with a Certificate of Insurance showing both the National Kidney Foundation and J. Broeg Services LLC as named insureds. Loni also secured the title sponsorship for the 1998 season through Hupp with the industrial lifts division of Toshiba International writing a check for $10,000.
We finalized our plans during a winter meeting at Hupp and thankfully I presented a full Business Plan stating the purpose of the Tour, the revenues that it would produce, the expenses that would need to be covered and how the NKF of Iowa would benefit. You will see why I used the word "thankfully" near the end of the fourth and final chapter of this story featuring the 2001 season.
In a nutshell this is how it would work:
NKF Benefits
- Pre-race and event exposure with the opportunity to educate the public on kidney disease
- The opportunity to have race night attendees sign an Organ Donor card
- Half of the 50/50 pot would go to the winner, the other half would go directly to the NKF of Iowa with Jodi Enger organizing volunteers from the US West Pioneers to handle the drawing at each event
- Series t-shirts and sweatshirts were printed with all proceeds going to the NKF of Iowa
Modified drivers would pay a $15 Entry Fee at each event and Hobby Stock drivers would pay an Entry Fee of $10 at each event with that money going to cover my travel, expenses and a nominal fee for my services. Basically I wanted to earn the equivalent of the minimum wage for the time that I was putting in on the Tour both at, and away from the track.
All was agreed upon and my first task was to pitch this unique concept to the track promoters in Iowa as we had no set purse and no set of rules. Our only purse requirement was that the Tow Money for a non-qualifier had to be equal to, or greater than the total amount paid for a pit pass and the NKF Tour entry fee. As for the rules, we would leave that up to each promoter as to the rules that they would want to run. They could keep them tight with their own track rules, or open them up a bit to allow for some more outside drivers, but it was their choice. Can you imagine how skeptical they were? Here was a new "racing series" that was obviously more focused on holding an event and educating the public on the struggles of kidney disease than they were on the racers. While we had hoped to be the headliners at each event, I knew that our best shot at getting scheduled would be as the support class, or classes at special events with the hope of not making a driver have to choose between racing at his or her home track on a Friday or Saturday night, or following the Tour.
I had the advantage of stating that we had $10,000 in the bank with $6,000 going to the Modifieds and $4,000 going to the Hobby Stocks and I was thrilled when Tom Barnes at the Mighty Howard County Fair was the first to respond soon after I sent out the proposals. Just like that we had a race booked during the fair at Cresco on Wednesday June 24th. We were off and running!
Here is the first Press Release that went out to announce the new Tour
In that release you see that each Contingency Sponsor paid $100 directly into the point fund and then provided product certificates to be awarded to the drivers at each event. These sponsors stepped up in that inaugural season:
Real Racing Wheels, Independence, Iowa
McDaniel Racing Enterprises, Eldon, Iowa
Race Mart, Memphis, Missouri
Midwest Motorsports, Ames, Iowa
Krug Racing Stables, Buckingham, Iowa
Sardeson Racing, Greenwood, Nebraska
Back in 1998 use of the internet was just getting started so my primary way of contacting drivers was through a Newsletter and on the right side of Volume 1, Issue 1 you will see the first schedule for the 1998 NKF Tour featuring seventeen events at fifteen different tracks, all in the state of Iowa. Honestly, I cannot recall where or how I came up with the initial mailing list of drivers, but it grew to nearly 500 by the time we stopped using the mail and started to use the internet.
How about those Point Funds? Not too bad for the first season of a new racing series and the Hobby Stock drivers in particular were thrilled to finally have an opportunity to follow a Tour. There are tours/series today that don't even come close to these numbers and require drivers to pay a $50 entry fee at each event.
So by early March the schedule was set and I was preparing to kick things off in just a few weeks in Webster City when out of the blue I get a phone call from none other than legendary Knoxville Raceway promoter Ralph Capitani. Now I can't even remember if I had sent a proposal to Knoxville or not for that first season, but he wasn't calling me about the NKF Tour. He was calling to ask if I would be interested in becoming one of the track announcers at the Sprint Car Capital of The World! Both Jack Herwehe and Tim Trier had retired from their positions after the 1997 season and, since I was now being called on March 7th I am going to assume today that I wasn't necessarily his first choice, but even so what an incredible honor to be asked.
After doing a couple of events in 1982, I became the regular track announcer at 34 Raceway in Burlington in 1983 and over the next six seasons I was the voice of as many as four different speedways at one time with weekly stints in Donnellson, West Liberty, Davenport and yes, I was the first track announcer at Hawkeye Downs after it was paved. I was a proud employee of who I believe was one of the greatest race promoters anywhere, Larry Kemp, and his travels also allowed me to announce some IMCA Modified Winter Series events at several different tracks in Florida. I was also given opportunities to announce special events that were not promoted by Kemp including the Ice Bowl at the Talladega Short Track and I was even welcomed in as a guest announcer at the Knoxville Nationals, one year doing most of the Friday night program after it had been postponed to Sunday.
When I got married to my beautiful wife Christine in 1989 that also gave me the opportunity to be a father to her two young children, Ashley and Kyle. And when we soon found out that we would be having one of our own a little more than nine months after the wedding I decided that I would no longer be a weekly track announcer. It was a good thing that I made that choice as just shy of two months after our son Morgan was born in March of 1990, I received an early morning phone call letting me know that my Dad had died of a heart attack at the age of forty-nine. Newly married and now with three young children and a business to run, there would have been no way that I would have been able to maintain a schedule of working weekly at two or three different tracks, but thankfully I was still being asked to come back and announce special events here and there as well as filling in for some of my announcer friends when they needed to take a night off.
As one of the two regular announcers for the Sprint Invader series over the past several seasons I am proud to say that I have announced at least one night of racing every year since 1982, so 2021 will be my 40th year behind the microphone!
A few of those cameo appearances in the 1990's had been for the IMCA Late Model Summer Series events at Knoxville and Mr. Capitani had apparently been impressed enough by those to give this "taxi cab announcer", as I would become known to the team of officials at Knoxville, the invitation to join that team in 1998. Knowing that none of our NKF Tour events for that first season had been scheduled on a Saturday that would conflict at Knoxville, I jumped at the opportunity, and a couple of the highlights from that job included the call of the first ever sub fifteen second lap by Don Droud Jr. in qualifying, giving the starting lineup for the Saturday night A-Main before handing the mic off to the legendary Jack Miller for his 25th and final call of the Knoxville Nationals, interviewing a jubilant Danny Lasoski a few minutes later after he won his first Nationals, and spending every Saturday night in the booth with young Tony Bokhoven who had spent the season before reporting from the pit area. I still jokingly claim that I taught him everything that he knows, but I know that there is more Trier, Herwehe and Miller in Bokhoven's spectacular style than there is Broeg as he truly is one of the best in the business to this day.
So I'm not sure which one was exactly my "side gig" in 1998, announcing at Knoxville or starting the NKF Tour, but what a letdown it was when our first event at Webster City on April 4th could not be run due to lingering winter weather. That meant that our opener would now be at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa on April 22nd. As you may have seen in that first Newsletter we had a unique situation with our shows at Osky, not only at this first one, but at all of the events that we would run there over the years. While Wednesday is an off night for most tracks, it is the weekly race night in Oskaloosa so the last thing that myself, or promoters Joe & Jim Durian wanted to do was force one of their weekly drivers to pay the NKF Tour Entry fee if they had no interest in running the Tour, so the drivers were given the option to participate or not. By paying the entry fee a driver would be eligible for the NKF Tour points and contingency awards, plus Bert McDaniel at McDaniel Racing Enterprises in Eldon sweetened the pot by offering a $60 cash bonus to the highest finishing Modified driver, and a $40 cash bonus to the highest finishing Hobby Stock driver who had paid the fee.
There weren't many, but yes I was disappointed by the few drivers who chose not to participate, but who could blame them? This was the first race ever for some "Tour" that seemed to be more about raising funds and awareness for a charity and if you were only going to race weekly at Oskaloosa there was no point in pitching in the extra money. I was thrilled though at some of the "travelers" that pulled in for that first show. In the Modifieds you had Tim McBride from Evansdale, Darin Thye from Burlington and Corey Dripps from Cedar Falls while in the Hobby Stocks Steve Holthaus from Cresco, Doug McCollough from Webster City, Jeff Larson from New Hampton, Jeremy Mills from Marathon, Randy Embrey from Granger and Jason Rohde from Fayette had all made the trip indicating that they had set a goal of following the Tour in its first season. Of course several of the Oskaloosa regulars would become Tour followers as well, perhaps by plan, or maybe because of that first exposure to what we were trying to do. I also see my good friend and fellow announcer Jeff Kropf of Ottumwa in the Modified results. I wonder if remembers that he participated in that first NKF Tour event?
Here is the story and the full results from that first race.
While we recognized the drivers who won the McDaniel Racing Enterprises bonuses at the track, you will notice that there is no mention of them in the story. I know that Steve Holthaus paid the Entry Fee as he was there to start running the NKF Tour. As of this day I cannot tell you whether or not track regular Gordy Grubb paid to participate and that is good because the last thing that I would have wanted to do would be to "call out" somebody in the story for either participating or not.
By the end of the night it didn't matter to me as each and every driver, and each and every fan had participated in the first ever National Kidney Foundation Heartland Tour for a Cure event. And it was a good one!
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| Jeff Larson won his heat race and finished 14th in the Tour opener at Oskaloosa. He and his good friend Steve Holthaus would be NKF Tour regulars all four seasons. |
Coming up in part two here on the Back Stretch, more stories and results from that opening season.
