Back on April 21, NHRA and the Bandimere family jointly announced the 2023 Dodge Power Brokers NHRA Mile-High Nationals on July 14-16 at Bandimere Speedway would be the last NHRA national event at the historic track just outside of Denver.
First opened in 1958, the Bandimere family has agreed to sell the current property and land, with the 2023 racing season marking the end of drag racing at the Morrison, Colo., location.
Now the final act of the Mile-High Nationals is just days away, CompetitionPlus.com caught up with Tami Bandimere, who is part of Bandimere Speedway’s executive team, to talk about how hectic things have been.
“I tell you what, this year has just been insanity. It’s just every event, I mean, and it doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s a Wednesday night test night or if it’s a Thunder on the Mountain, we have just been killing it, Bandimere said. “It’s just been one of those years … and never underestimate the power of an anniversary year (this is the track’s 65th anniversary). So, we knew that it was going to be a good year going into it. At the Thunder on the Mountain, I was in the T-shirt trailer, and I was selling stuff, and I’m literally selling stuff off the walls, just because people are buying stuff like crazy. This one guy comes up to me, and he goes, ‘I’ll take that sweatshirt right there in a large.’ And I said, ‘Well, unfortunately, the biggest I’ve got is a small.’ And he stands there for about two seconds, and he goes, ‘Yeah, that’ll work.’ I’m thinking, ‘How do you justify a small sweatshirt when you clearly need a large?’ But I was like, “$49, sir.”
Bandimere expects the same kind of demand for merchandise at the Mile-High Nationals.
“It’s just been that kind of a year,” she said. “You’re thinking to yourself, ‘No, no, no, I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine,’ and then the next thing you know … I mean, my trailer is stocked for Saturday, and I guarantee you that it’s just going to be destroyed by the time the event is over. Because that’s just what we’re dealing with.”
With the curtain set to drop on the Mile-High Nationals, emotions should be running high, but that has not been the case yet, according to Bandimere.
“What’s happening is God is allowing us to be really, really busy right now, so that’s helpful,” she said. “You’re more concerned right now with servicing your guests and making sure that everybody’s taken care of and that everybody’s having a good time. I’m not exactly sure that we’ve all completely processed that just yet, but I think that sometimes he allows us to … He redirects our focus a little bit, and I think that’s helpful so that we can be the best part of ourselves for our guests.
“We’ve always said, as a family, that we don’t want this to be a wa-wa attitude from us. We want it to be really positive. We want people to know that this is the way it is. Life has changes, and this is a change. We all knew it was coming, and so for us, that kind of attitude needs to come from the top down. We’re working really hard to try to keep that going that way.”
Bandimere didn’t supply an itinerary for the upcoming Mile-High Nationals but did acknowledge there’s some special things in the works.
“Right now, we’re just trying to nail everything down to make sure that everything’s going to come together before we make decisions,” she said. “But one of the really cool things is that NHRA is allowing us to do a prayer and national anthem all three days. As you know, that’s important for our family, not only the patriotic side of it but the honoring God side of it as well. I know Eddie Baugher is the one who does the prayer on Sundays, and I don’t want to mess with that, but on Friday and Saturday, I’ve said I want my dad (John Bandimere Jr., track president) to pray. I want him to be the one who does that, so we’re going to do that. Then, we’ve got some real nice talent for all three that are going to do the national anthem, so I think that’ll be great. I think we’ve got a flyover on Saturday and on Sunday.
“I’m sure there are some other things that are going to pop up, that we’re going to be like, ‘Oh, we didn’t know that was in the works.’ We’re pretty much completely sold out on Saturday. We’ve really sold just about everything we possibly can at this point.”
Bandimere said Saturdays have always been high-attendance days at the Mile-High Nationals, and mix that in with this being the final one; the ticket sales didn’t surprise her.
“Over the years, Saturday has always been the good day. This year it’s an even better day,” Bandimere said. “But we’ve never really been in a position to announce a sellout, and so this year will be the year that we are able to do that, at least for Saturday, for sure. What’s happening is people are thinking, ‘Okay, well then, if I can’t come Saturday, then I’m going to maybe get off work on Friday and come. Then that’s going to start trickling into Sunday as well. I don’t know; we’ll see what happens as it gets closer.”
Bandimere said the coveted tickets do cause some other issues.
“That plays into its own challenges because you think to yourself, ‘Well, we’re sold out, so we’re good.’ Well, now what’s happening is that some of that fraudulent ticket stuff starts to happen,” she said. “That’s going to happen. People might have one good ticket, but they make seven copies of it and sell it. And whoever gets here first is the one who gets the seat. And especially since everything that we’ve got is reserved, where are you going to put five extra butts? You just can’t, so that’s going to be a challenge as well. We’ll just get through it. We’ll just make it work.”
There have been countless memories made at Bandimere Speedway during its six-plus decades, but Tami said she does have one that stands out.
Back in 1988, Bandimere Speedway underwent a $4.2 million renovation and did not host an NHRA national event.
And Tami has fond memories of 1989 when the track opened back up with a makeover.
“I really think that the year that we came back after our renovation was one of the biggest memories, I think, for all of us,” she said. “All of us were young parents. I remember that we all gathered on the starting line for the opening ceremonies. My dad’s sister and his brother were there. I think that’s when it hit all of us that, ‘Oh my gosh, we did it.’ I mean, it actually got done. A huge blessing was that it was the first year that we were connected with Chrysler through Mopar, so that was an amazing thing. That was pretty remarkable. That’s been a 35-year relationship with them.”
Tami said the 1989 Mile-High Nationals was a true case of her family coming together to make the national event a success.
“We didn’t even have time to hire people to do hospitality in the tower,” Bandimere said. “We didn’t even have a Top Eliminator Club yet because that came a couple of years later. But we did have 15 suites that we needed to service, and we were also doing box lunches for NHRA. We were thinking, ‘Hey, if here’s how much you’re going to pay, we can make the money on that.’ So, we would stock the suites with beverage and food.
“I remember carrying cases of soda up and down the stairs, and I had just had a baby six weeks prior, and it was hot. We were literally just running on adrenaline the entire weekend.”
The work didn’t stop either when the event was done.
“When the race got over, my sister-in-law, my mom, my sister, and I, well, we put the kids in car seats, and we cleaned suites,” Bandimere said. “And we vacuumed, and we moved them from suite to suite and cleaned. That took us a couple of hours. Then we went downstairs and made box lunches for the next day for all of us gals. It was one of those five hours of sleep every night kind of situations. We used to look back at that and go, we weren’t miserable, it was fine, but it was just … I think to myself now, at the age that I am now, I’m thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, that was insanity.’ Why did we not hire people? But we weren’t even sure we were going to be able to use the tower. We were praying like mad people because we really didn’t even get our certificate of occupancy until hours before the event started.”
Now, Tami is anxious for the 2023 Mile-High Nationals to unfold.
“We’re so excited. We’ve always packed this place, but it’s going to be even tighter,” she said. “It’s just going to be awesome. I’m so excited that we’ve got all four of the pro classes back again. That’s going to be fun.
“I was in Norwalk (Ohio, last weekend), and everybody there was really excited to come (to the Mile-High Nationals). I think they’ve got mixed emotions as well. I think that they’re kind of like, ‘Man, this is hard.’ I took our 65th anniversary decals to Norwalk to pass them out to all the pro racers and asked them if they would put them on their vehicles for the weekend. There wasn’t a single one of them that said they wouldn’t. So, we’ll see. They’ve said that they’ll do it, so we’re excited.”
