<B>ARCADIA, Wis. --</B> Fox Ridge Speedway owners Dave Hesch and Jeff Reglin have announced that starting as soon as the frost is out of the ground they will begin an extensive project to redesign and improve the racing surface at the speedway.

Comments from drivers in all classes have made the management consider the reconstruction and design changes.

“Our plan,” said Hesch, “is to make the necessary alterations so that fans and racers at this track can experience some of the best and most competitive multi-grooved racing in the Upper Midwest.”

In order to bring this plan to fruition, Fox Ridge Speedway has enlisted the assistance of Les Duellman to help create the redesign plan. As a graduate of the prestigious Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Duellman plans to put his Mechanical Engineering Degree -- not to mention years of successful racing experience -- to work.

“What I am doing is taking an engineering approach to designing the banking of a race track,” explained Duellman, “Nobody enjoys watching racing on a single groove race track so, using an engineering program I’ve developed, we will create a variably-banked corner design which will produce an equally competitive multi-grooved racing surface for all drivers.”

In layman’s terms, a variably-banked corner (often compared to the inside of a soup bowl) produces a flatter bottom groove with progressively increasing degrees of banking as one chooses a lane further towards the outside of the racing surface. This allows multiple strategies for drivers: slower, yet quicker, inside grooves or faster, yet longer, outside grooves.

“In my planning,” continued Duellman, “I would like to see four complete grooves all producing equal lap times. It can be done.”

After the redesign is complete, a different type of clay will be put in place as a new racing surface and a new, more fan-friendly winner’s circle will be designed to bring feature winners closer to the grandstands for a more personal victory celebration.