AFTER GRUELING 2020, BANDIMERE SPEEDWAY’ FAMILY THRILLED WITH MILE-HIGH NATIONALS CROWDS
The Bandimere family, owners of Bandimere Speedway, were in court battles last summer with officials from the Jefferson County Health Department as related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bandimere Speedway is in Morrison, Colo., 20 minutes from Denver. Bandimere Speedway has been hosting races for 64 years.
The Bandimere family executive team runs the speedway and the family frustrations with restrictions for their events led to them host the “Stop the COVID Chaos” Rally, Sept. 1 at Bandimere Speedway.
The rally was billed to celebrate God and country and the people of the great state of Colorado.
The days in court and rallies are in the rear-view mirror and Tami Bandimere was thrilled to see the fans come out in droves during the Dodge//SRT Mile-High NHRA Nationals Presented By Pennzoil, July 16-18.
“Saturday (July 17) was our biggest day, and we knew it was going to be with the two qualifying sessions,” Tami said. “Everything we could possibly sell had been sold. Now with walk-in and online and advance stuff it’s kind of a dance to put all that stuff together and get it all figured out. We also had a great crowd Friday night with nearly as many people.”
The crowd Sunday on race day also looked to near a sellout.
Bandimere said the capacity of the track is 24,000 and her family was glad to accommodate the crowds.
“I think it is the consumer confidence,” Tami said. “We knew it was going to be there. We knew as soon as everything got opened, it was going to happen. The thing is they needed someone to step out and be strong and jump on the bandwagon with us, and the support has just been amazing.
“We never really shut down all last year. It was just a fight, is and it (the crowd capacity at Bandimere Speedway) was so limited. The fact is with it being an outdoor venue with over 150 acres, it was so frustrating for us, especially when what we do, basically is street racing, but on a racetrack. The people who couldn’t come here and make a responsible decision and come some place that’s safe, they were out doing it on the highways and the streets and county, and city officials heads were exploding, like what do we do with this people, and we were like ‘Open us up and let them come here.’ Why spend all this money at your taxpayers’ budget to try to shut people down on streets when we have a place they can come to.
“For some reason, they couldn’t see the forest through the trees, and they just continued to keep us on lockdown to a certain extent. We never shutdown. We continued to run limited events. So, this year when the schedule rolled around, we were like we are open, and we are doing it.”
The restrictions Bandimere Speedway had to adhere during COVID-19 last year were as follows:
1) Bandimere Speedway cannot host an event in excess of 175 attendees
2) Cannot host an activity that doesn’t allow 6 feet of social distancing among non-family members
3) Cannot hold an event that serves food under the state’s restaurant guidelines
When Colorado Governor Jared Polis announced on April 6 that Coors Field was going to host the MLB All-Star Game on July 13 with expected full capacity of 50,398, it didn’t go unnoticed by the Bandimere family.
“That was a huge blessing for us, a huge blessing for us,” Tami said. “We all kind of looked at each other and thought, huh? Headscratcher. Now, we are all in. It is little hard to let one do it and not the other. I think races being the kind of people they are they noticed that as well and wanted to pack this place (Bandimere Speedway). We are so grateful and so appreciative. We are so happy to be open and to see everybody here.”