2021 Banquet Highlights

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 Beaver Dam Raceway recognizes the importance of family support while being involved in racing at the short track level. Racing is a challenging sport and success is only possible with the support of a lot of families. In our grandstands and our pit areas we see a lot of great families working, cheering, and supporting the drivers. We honor one of those families each year with this award. 

 We started the Golden Wrench Award to recognize those individuals behind the scenes that work on the cars we all enjoy watching. While the driver receives the accolades, it is these people that spend their nights behind the limelight; building, tuning, and making both their car and driver winners. One of the early winners of this award stated while receiving the award, ”I didn’t think anyone noticed”. We do notice and appreciate all members of the pit crews and their efforts. We recognize one of these each season that has achieved the respect of all the crews with the Golden Wrench Award. 

 Beaver Dam Raceway is owned by a group of men. There were five in the beginning, Scott Boyd, Lee Merkel, Glen Hepfner, Bill Muche, and Larry Henkel. We lost Larry some years back to illness. He was much like the others, a successful businessman who has a passion for this sport. He was a quiet, behind the scenes type of guy who enjoyed being at the track and was perfectly comfortable in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. If you didn't know him, you would never have guessed he was one of the owners.

His passion for racing was a lifelong affair with him and included being involved with the Blue Flame land speed record holding car. Hence the shape and color for the award that is given in his name. Larry's passion was for fast cars, good looking cars, and high character people. We give this award to honor Larry's passion for those traits. 

With all the serious awards out of the way we recently started doing Fun Awards. If someone does something funny, unbelievably strange, or just something Kris can make a joke about - she creates awards.