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Last American Heroes

Ricky Dennis is no Johnny-come-lately to the world of racing. His dad, Bill Dennis , was the 1970 Winston Cup Rookie of the Year, and won the Permatex 300 race at Daytona three years in a row in the mid-70s.

Though his dad was a hero to many local racing fans, Ricky Dennis, who grew up in Short Pump, said he was considered a redneck by many of his classmates because his dad raced cars.

But today, when Dennis runs into his old classmates, all they want to talk about is racing. "It shows you how much racing has changed since then," he said.

Recently labeled by Fortune magazine as America's fastest growing sport, NASCAR has seen its fan base extend well beyond the highways and byways of Appalachia in the last decade. And with rising television ratings and a flood of corporate money flowing in, it seems likely that NASCAR will only continue to expand its reach.

All of which bodes well for Arena Racing USA , the only indoor stock car racing series in the country. The series, which debuted in 2002 in Hampton Roads, features 15 races from November through March. All of the races for the 2005-06 season will take place at Hampton Coliseum or the Norfolk Scope arena.

But all that should change next year, as Dennis plans to duplicate the series in several cities across the nation. After operating on a shoestring for the last few seasons, Dennis has secured the financial backing of some heavyweight investors, including the Becker family of Houston, former owners of PACE Entertainment , and Norm and Tommy Miller , owners of Interstate Battery , a corporate sponsor of NASCAR. Washington Redskins coach and NASCAR owner Joe Gibbs has also signed on for the project.

Dennis said he could not have dreamed of attracting a better group of investors. "I have partners that can walk into virtually any arena in the U.S. and be respected and known because their reputation is golden," he said.

The Richmond Coliseum cannot host any races this year, a fact that Dennis, who now resides in Mechanicsville, laments. The Coliseum has monster-truck shows in March and November, and their contract with Clear Channel stipulates that they cannot hold any motor sports events 90 days prior or 60 days after those events. Robert Fleskes , director of marketing for Richmond Coliseum, said he was approached by Dennis about doing a race in February for this season. Since the Thunder Nationals Monster Truck Racing show is held in mid-March, Fleskes said it was not a possibility, though he said they are open to holding Arena Racing events there in the future.

For this season, Dennis said his sights are focused on improving the Hampton Roads events. He plans to add pyrotechnics, lights and a sound system.

While attending a Richmond Renegades minor-league hockey game at Richmond Coliseum in 1992, Dennis came up with the idea for arena racing. At one point during the game, Dennis was seized by the vision of scaled-down race cars gunning it around an indoor track the size of hockey rink.

Ten years later, his vision had been realized. Each event, which attracts anywhere from 400 to 4,000 fans, features five 50-lap races on a track that runs just under a tenth of a mile. Before the fans enter the gates at 6 p.m., there are four qualifying heat races in the afternoon to determine which race a driver competes in at night. The top three finishers of the four main races compete later that night in the final event, the "Top Dog" race, where the drivers compete for cash and "points." The season culminates with a "point-based" championship, which offers more than $35,000 to the top drivers.

Arena Racing USA is democratic in the strictest sense of the word, with both males and females "between the ages of 14 and 114" eligible to enter. Dennis said the league's racers are comprised of three types of brave souls: teenagers that want to start a racing career, summer stock-car racers who want to keep their skills sharp in the winter and old-timers who have always dreamed of being a stock car racer.

Each driver is required to purchase their own car through the league. The cars, which at 9 feet in length are one-half the size of Winston Cup stock cars, run about $9,000. Some drivers get company sponsors, receiving as much as $6,000 to $16,000 from them.

"Most of the teams are going to tell you they spend about $100 a race," Dennis said. "When they get $16,000, they can go out and wreck a lot."

As a kid growing up in Short Pump, Dennis said his dad was a local hero throughout the region. These days, he said all the local racing heroes live in Charlotte, something he hopes to change with his brand of racing.

"We're going to go back and create some local heroes again," he said. "We want to get these drivers in schools and churches and let them be a positive influence on the community. And we're giving these people an opportunity to live a dream."

When a city decides to adopt the series next season, they would be required to build their own racetrack and field 56 teams, which is how many teams are in the Hampton Roads league. After the regular season has ended, there will be a playoff system, where each of the top ten teams will go to state competition, which would be followed by a regional and national playoff tournament.

Arena Racing USA was recently selected by the Venture Forum as one of Greater Richmond's "Companies to Watch," a project which seeks to promote early-stage businesses that have the potential to be significant contributors to the local economy. With the way things are looking, Arena Racing USA has the potential to extend even beyond the local sphere.

"It's pretty cool that it's happening in little old Richmond, Virginia," Dennis said.