Adam Torres and Michelle Lackey discuss Alaska Raceway Park
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Show Notes:
Alaska Raceway Park is a one of a kind racing experience for fans and racecar drivers alike. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Michelle Lackey, Lady Track Boss at Alaska Raceway Park, explore Michelle’s journey as a track owner and the story behind Alaska Raceway Park.
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About Alaska Raceway Park
Alaska Raceway Park, nestled in Palmer, Alaska, is a premier motorsports complex that hosts races from Mother’s Day to Labor Day. Situated near Butte, the Knik River, and the Knik Glacier, this renowned racing venue is located at Mile 10.4 of the Old Glenn Highway, approximately 41.5 miles northeast of Anchorage, Alaska. The backdrop of the 6,398-foot Pioneer Peak adds to the scenic beauty, making it a favorite among race fans worldwide. Perched at an elevation of 63 feet above sea level, the track offers optimal air pressure, ideal for high-performance racing.
They feature NHRA Division 6 drag racing on our 1/4 mile track as well as NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series racing and INEX legend and bandolero racing on their 1/3 mile paved high bank oval.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of mission matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters. com and click on, be our guest to apply. All right. So today is a very special episode. I’ve been looking forward to this for a really long time.
I have Michelle Lackey on the line. She’s the lady track boss over at Alaska. Raceway Park. I have not yet been to the raceway, but I’ve seen so many pictures and I am jealous and I can’t wait to bring this story to my audience and also talk about the upcoming book where that we’re launching together.
So first off, Michelle, welcome to the show. So good to have you here. Good morning, Adam. It is so good to finally be here with you. You know, we were talking a little bit like we’ve been, we’ve been working on this for a little bit since PRI and it’s exciting that we finally connected and I’m really happy to launch this book with you and talk a little bit about Alaska Raceway Park.
Oh, yeah. So I guess just to get into this, let’s start this episode the way that we start them all with what we like to call our mission matters minute. So Michelle at mission matters are our aim and our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives and experts. That’s what we do. We want to tell stories that we feel need to be heard and need to be told.
That’s our mission. Michelle, what mission matters to you? My mission is to make sure that motor sports continues to grow and be in Alaska as well as across the globe. We are the only NHRA drag strip in Alaska. We’re the only NASCAR track in Alaska. And I feel it’s really important for us to continue to grow that community and to provide a place for motor sports to continue to be for generations to come.
Amazing. And great to have you here. And it’s epic. And just to start this off the Instagram handle one more time for that. What’s the Instagram handle? I want people to go check that out as they’re listening to this, because I want them to see some of those breathtaking views. What’s the handle? The handle for Alaska Raceway Park is at Alaska Raceway.
And we’re on same thing on Facebook and on LinkedIn. Yeah. Amazing. So check that out. And as you, as you’re listening to this interview and you’re going to see some of the things that we’ll be talking about as well. First off, Michelle and I, and I don’t know this story. How did you get into motor sports in general?
Like how did, where, when were you first introduced to it? Well, motor sports is a family sport and we grew up here. My, my older brother started racing at Alaska Raceway Park in the late eighties. And as I became old enough to drive, then I started driving. My parents bought into the racetrack with a few other drag racers in the late nineties.
They ended up buying it from the gentleman who, who started the track originally, we turned 60 last year. So it’s been here for a while. So they bought into the track. I continued to race. I ended up. Getting pregnant with my daughter Morgan, and so I got moved into a managerial type role, and I’ve been kind of working behind the scenes ever since, and then in 2016, we added our NASCAR track, and when that happened, I kind of got put in charge of that, and in 2020, I took over for my parents as the lady truck boss.
Hmm. I want to get into that, that name in a moment, but before we do, cause lady track boss, I remember when I first seen you and you had in person, I should say, and you had on that shirt. I’m like, Oh my gosh, we’re in for one here. But before we get into the lady track boss, did you know, like in the early days that you were going to be involved with the family business and this was going to be part of your path?
Cause sometimes people like when you’re growing up in the family business, you’re like, ah, I don’t want to do that. Or was it just like, no, this is the greatest thing ever. I’m in. Like what, what was your journey? It wasn’t really like that. I was actually living in Fairbanks, which is about six hours away from the racetrack.
I had moved up there. I owned a printing company in Fairbanks. I owned, well, I didn’t own, I started the Fairbanks Roller Girls, which is a nonprofit roller derby league. So I was, I was busy doing all of that stuff. I was coming down here on the weekends and racing and my family, my parents were running it and they were kind of getting a little bit older and having some health issues and, and they were talking about, you know, potentially selling the racetrack, like, you know, they need to come up with an exit plan.
And we were down here one summer and I ended up. Mom wasn’t feeling really good. So I ended up popping into the pit gate and kind of taking over for her. And, and on the way home, you know, you’ve got six hours to reflect on things. This is a community that I’ve grown up in. You know, people have seen me grow up here.
They’ve seen my, my kids grow up here. You know, we’ve got generations of racers and if my parents sell this track to somebody else, it, that changes things. Right. And, and it just didn’t seem like that was the path that I wanted to go in. And so it was kind of at that point that we were like, okay, you know, I need to get back here.
I need to take over for my parents. And my daughter at the time was in high school. So I kind of needed to wait till she finished school and I, you know, had the business to get rid of and, you know, retiring from roller Derby and we had an Airbnb and, you know, there was, there’s a stuff that had to be taken care of to get done.
And so it took a couple of years to get down here, but that was, you know, it was, it was kind of at that point when I was like, you know, this is. This is our family legacy and this is something that I need to continue for everybody that’s out here and I don’t, you know, we could have sold it. I mean, it’s, it’s a lot of property.
We could definitely sell it, but it could also be subdivided or, you know, it, it would change and changing this changes that relationship with motor sports for everybody in the state. Yeah. What’s it like to like take on that responsibility of really stewarding a community like that’s interesting because we have so much history, so much pedigree there outside of even just the racing part and you know, the logistics of running a business, but to steward and be responsible for community.
I’m guessing at that time you didn’t know, like until you got into the seat, like, we don’t know what we don’t know. Right? Right. Yeah. You definitely don’t know. Kind of what you’re getting into when you, you step into this role and it’s it’s very rewarding. It’s very not rewarding at times. It is, it’s a lot of responsibility and I try not to think about that too much cause they don’t want to get like down, bogged down in the weeds.
So there’s a lot of really good stuff that happens out here and I try to keep that. Goal and that community first and foremost, because that’s what what keeps driving me to keep making this better is, you know, the, the lives that are being changed because of what we’re doing here and I know it’s motorsports and it doesn’t seem like it’s.
You know, that’s, you know, I’m not saving babies or or, you know, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t compare that. I don’t know. Maybe people community coming together in different ways. Everybody needs a way to connect and to come together. So I wouldn’t disagree. credit that. I mean, you are some people, some people that have the ability to come into the stands and watch the races.
And if that’s their release, like entertainment is super important to giving people a release just from day to day, the pressures of their life. So I wouldn’t discredit that. But continue. I can’t let you off on that one. It’s, it’s that became really, really apparent during 2020, you know, because we are, we are this community and I spend a lot of time in the winter.
It’s Alaska and it’s dark and I, and I’m excited actually today. I told you earlier I was traveling and I, I got back this morning and today the sun is up before 10 o’clock and you’re down in LA and that, that doesn’t. Mean a whole lot to the rest of the world, but it does only for, I haven’t felt it, but I understand.
I don’t empathize. Yeah. But I sympathize. I get it. , we’re gaining like six, six minutes of daylight a day and every minute makes such a huge difference, you know? And so in the wintertime it’s, it’s long and it’s dark and I don’t get to spend time with, with my community. And so in 2020 we were, you know, of course everything shut down and it was like, okay, well what, what do we do?
Like this is gonna change. Things for so many people because we’re not going to be able to get together and because it is a large facility and we’re outdoors and we’re in a very progressive state, we were able to continue to race during COVID and that made a huge difference to so many people because we were someplace where people could, they, they didn’t have to be messed up and they didn’t have to be locked up and they didn’t have to be away from the people that they really connected with.
And I was, yeah. Very grateful that we were able to provide that opportunity for, for everybody across the state. It was great. Yeah, amazing story. And I wish I would have been out there. I was cooped up in an apartment and quarantining in downtown Los Angeles. That was horrible. I wish I would have known each other then I’ve been at the raceway.
I wasn’t doing anything. Anyway, I do some interviews over there. Fine. Yeah, we’ve got Wi Fis. Oh, there you go. So circling back to just your story in general. So now you’re hanging up The roller skates, the roller derby, you’re retiring from that. You’re moving on. You transition. Our lady track boss is born.
Tell me about that in that transition. And even just the name, where’d that come from? I love it. So growing up in a movie in my head, by the way, like hanging up the roller skates, hanging up the leg is retiring for now, lady track boss born. So, so growing up, I had a. Pick up. I still have a struck that my dad and I put together in the license plate on the trucks is bad lady.
And that’s because in the eighties, you know, bad was cool, whatever it is. My older brother had it, had a car and his license plates had that. So my plate was bad lady. And so bad lady is going to have been my handle for everything. And so when I skated, my roller derby name is bad lady. Actually, I have it tattooed on my arm.
So, so I see a theme here. I think we can totally make this in a movie. So shorten it up into BL and BL, it turned into boss lady when I became the boss lady of the racetrack. So I was, my email is bl at race AK. com. Cause I really wanted a short one, right? And so boss lady kind of evolved into the lady track boss because.
There, there are not very many ladies that one, there’s not very many ladies that run racetracks and there are even fewer ladies that actually own racetracks and our facility is not just a racetrack. I’ve got 2, I have the NASCAR track and the NHRA track. So it’s, it is a motor sports park. And so it is, it’s, it’s a large responsibility.
And so that’s kind of how it evolved into the lady track boss. Can you talk a little bit about the track in general and what you’re doing at the track and just a little bit about the views because it’s just absolutely amazing and I know this is an audio a lot of people will listen to this in the car so they’re not going to be able to you know hear or visualize what we’re doing but give us a little bit of how you would for somebody that has their eyes closed describe what the track would be like and that and those mountains in the background.
The track sits in a, an old riverbed. It’s in a valley. And at the end of the drag strip, like as you are driving down the drag strip, you are going straight into the base of Pioneer Peak, which is a 6, 000 plus high mountain at the end. And it is absolutely gorgeous. And you would think that the track is at a high elevation because of all the mountains, but we’re actually at 62 feet of elevation.
So if you are into drag racing, you know, that means that there’s some really good air temperatures out and it makes for some really good racing times and. At the oval track, that mountain is also in the back. So as you’re, as you’re cornering, going around turn two, and you’re heading down the straightaway into turn three, you’re driving like straight into that mountain.
So it is, it’s absolutely gorgeous. We have. I’m a whole nother mountain range on the other side and because it’s in the valley at the very end of the valley, there is a glacier that you can actually drive all the way down to and go check out in the winter time. This this time of year. We’ve had a lot of northern lights.
So the Aurora has been out at night. Over the racetrack. And it is, it’s absolutely gorgeous here. So it’s a beautiful racetrack and it’s 45 minutes north of Anchorage, which is where you would fly into if you fly into Alaska, not too far away from anything. And we’ve got some amazing Airbnbs and everything close by.
So it’s a beautiful place to come and visit. Yeah, absolutely amazing. I wanna talk about the entrepreneurial side about, of this a little bit. I know we were introduced by Jason over at Trackside and mm-hmm . And as I, as I went to PRI and got to know a little bit about, more about the Motorsport side of the industry and just in the industry in general, I should say, the concept of like digitization, of upgrading, of like, a lot of what I noticed is that, you know, this is a physical event space and it’s a, and it’s motor sports, but a lot of the challenges and a lot of the.
things that, you know, any brick and mortar business face are there as well. So can you talk a little, just a little bit about the concept of your vision for the future, for the track and just as an entrepreneur, like, like your goals. That’s a, that’s a big one. We are in the digital space. I’m working on trying to make things as efficient as possible.
I am kind of a, a one woman show at the moment. I’ve, I’ve got. A couple of very amazing partners and employees that, that I work with that helped me with different things. But all of those people also have other like, like real jobs, you know, and I’m the only one who’s here full time all the time. And so I’m trying really, really hard to make sure that the processes that we have are as automated and digital as possible so that I can get more stuff done with, with just me.
And. You know, so we’re getting, you know, our merchandise online and having that automated and syncing in with our gift shops and stuff so we can sell things in real time and keep track of inventory that way. We have put in a campus wifi system so that all of the internet is all connected together. And it’s not, you know, originally when I first Three different internet hubs, you know, because the track is huge.
And so it doesn’t trying to cover this amount of space it’s very difficult. And so Jason helped out a lot with trying to get those, you know, and I don’t know all that tech stuff, but he helped out all that stuff put together so that everything is seamless and we don’t have drops during the race day.
Because we just, we. You know, can’t afford to have that happen during the day. Longterm we’re looking at, you know, future growth is trying to make sure that the racetrack is sustainable longterm. We have a drag ship and we have a NASCAR track and we do events and that’s great, but the problem is with.
Racing is that it is weather dependent. And so if I have a particular wet season or, you know, there are a lot of other competing events, which we didn’t have a problem with during COVID, but right now, you know, everybody’s having concerts and there’s other things and summer is short and, and people want to go do other things.
And so. Trying to make sure that we can diversify the property enough so that we can continue to do this stuff that we love to do and not be so concerned that a rainy season is going to potentially take the facility out. And so we’re looking at long term, adding in some car condos so that. The folks that want to come out here have a place to keep their toys and you know, they’re right here at the track putting in, you know, possibly an event center or something like that so that we can do, you know, our banquet at the end of the season is 200 plus people.
So we can host that thing. And so we can host people’s Christmas parties and weddings and because it is a gorgeous venue and I, you know, why wouldn’t you want to have this background in your wedding photos? And then long term long term I’d like to put in some type of road course because that was, my dad grew up racing at road America in Wisconsin and doing things like that.
And that, that was kind of. In addition to the oval track, one of his dreams. And so it would be really nice to make sure that that came true. We don’t have a facility like that in Alaska. And I, I think. Having that and with the location that allows people like yourself to come up and race at a beautiful facility and, and kind of check that off of your bucket list.
Lady track boss, getting it done. I love this. That’s a great story. Well, for everybody watching, just. So, you know, we’re we’re definitely going to bring Michelle back on the show. Once the book is launched, we’re looking at a target date for before the end of February. So we’re really, really close here and we’re going to definitely bring Michelle back on and we’re going to do a full deep dive into what she wrote and what she contributed to the book.
So don’t worry about that. But for today, Michelle, if somebody wants to follow up, they want to learn more. They want to connect with your team at Alaska Raceway Park. How do they do that? Our website is RaceAK. com. We are very active on Facebook and Instagram at Alaska Raceway Park. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, a little less active on there, I got to work on that one a little bit more, but, and then if you want to follow along with me, I am also on all of those platforms at LadyTrackBoss and you can check that out at LadyTrackBoss.
com. Perfect. And for everybody listening and watching, just so you know, we’ll definitely put those links in the show notes, so you can just click on the link and head right on over and speaking to the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button, this is a daily show each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, new stories, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along when your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button and Michelle. Thank you so much for making some time for us. And I’m, I’m really excited about the book that we’re launching together and also get to bring you back in the show so we can talk about it some more. So thanks for coming on. Yep. Thank you.