The Montezuma County Fairgrounds Speedway will have racing this season after all.
A Farmington, N.M., man, who has raced at the speedway for the past 13 years, decided to take over the operations for 2012.
Regan Tafoya approached the Montezuma County Commission to receive its support for him to take over for Jack Nelson, who decided to take a year off after being the promoter for the past four years.
Tafoya said he had heard rumors that another person was going to become the promoter, and when that did not pan out he decided to try to see what it would take for him to take over for the race season.
“We thought someone else would jump on it,” he said. “Once we found out that (was not the case), we decided to get involved.”
Tafoya said he has raced at the track for 13 years and could not envision Cortez not having races this summer.
“We did not want that to go away,” he said, and remembered his first race at the dirt track that occurred while he attended high school.
“We have never ran a race track before, so we had a lot of conversations,” he said. “They told us what we needed. We wanted to just keep it alive.”
Tafoya said there are no plans to change how Nelson promoted the race track and instead wants to continue with what Nelson started.
“We want to pick up where he left off last year,” Tafoya told the commission at its Monday meeting. “We want to keep it going.'
Tafoya said he is working with Nelson, also a Farmington, resident, who will be able to help him in the endeavor.
He also said being the promoter of the race track will be a side job that will require full-time hours.
“I never ran a race track before, but I owned and operated two businesses. I know a little about running a business,” he said.
Tafoya, who was at the commission meeting with Fairgrounds Manager Tanner Young, told the commission that everything was in place if he was given the green light to proceed.
“All we have to do is make a few phone calls,” he said.
Tafoya was informed that liability insurance was necessary and no one under the age of 16 could be hired to work at the race track.
County Attorney Bob Slough said while the county can lease or rent the race track it needs to be understood that the county is not putting on or controlling the events, though the county rules still apply.
The hope, Tafoya said, is to have races one to two weekends a month for starters. He said the first weekend of racing this year will take place June 1-2.
“We wanted some good local racing,” he said, and added he plans to begin handing out fliers with the racing schedule to residents right away, since many people were under the impression that there would no racing season.
County Commissioner Gerald Koppenhafer said he was glad to see that the race track would be used this season, and Commissioner Larrie Rule also said he had no problem with letting Tafoya be the promoter as long as all the requirements are met.
Commissioner Steve Chappell was absent from the meeting.
Reach Michael Maresh at michaelm@cortezjournal.com