Bench Racing with Jay Doerr, Ep. 5

Podcast conversation full of bench racing with Ontario Sportsman Series Champion, Jay Doerr

If you ever hear race car drivers talk about “bench racing,” they’re essentially saying that they’re telling stories about racing.

I never expected I’d have to know something like that.

In fact, I never expected to end up working at race track, let alone manage one. I just wanted to be a radio announcer. And for a while, I was.

Early in my radio career, I somehow got involved in hosting a radio show about auto racing. Next thing I knew, I had been hired as an announcer at one of the tracks we covered on that show, a place called Delaware Speedway. And only a few short years after that, I found myself leaving my chosen profession and role as morning show radio host at CHOK Radio in Sarnia to become the Sales & Marketing Director at the race track.

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Just over three years after that, I was General Manager of the place. It was a role I never aspired to and still have mixed feelings about. But I can tell you this: our team worked our asses off during that time and did the absolute best we could. We won some, lost some and learned and experienced more within a couple years than I think I could have in a decade at any school.

And I have a lot of “bench racing” I could do about my time there. Perhaps I should do more of it. That’s what Jay Doerr and I did here, and it was a lot of fun.

Jay Doerr was just starting out his Delaware Speedway racing career right around the time I began as an announcer. As the years went on, my career progressed and so did Jay’s racing efforts. We gradually got to know each other,  just as I also became more familiar with dozens and dozens of other drivers and teams. So when I got put into the General Manager’s role, I suppose I had already formed some strong friendships with many of the race crews, and I felt a tremendous responsibility in not wanting to let them down.

Bench Racing with Jay Doerr

I have deliberately not thought or talked much about Delaware Speedway over the last many years. But that’s starting to change, and having the chance to enjoy some bench racing with Jay, a 3-time series champion and long-time top Ontario competitor, was a real treat for me. I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but I think it would be safe to say that Jay and I always have had mutual respect for each other and I think that comes across in our conversation.

I hope some of the many people I got to know in that time enjoy hearing some of these stories. I’ve no doubt there are many, many more to come.