By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune Managing Editor
Mark Simendinger is known throughout the region for his influential roles at Turfway Park and the Kentucky Speedway.
As the Speedway prepares for its big weekend, which includes races in NASCAR Camping World Truck, Xfinity and Sprint Cup series, Simendinger reflected on the path that led him to the position of general manager of the Gallatin County race track.
Simendinger grew up in Severna Park, Maryland, a small town near Annapolis. His first connection to the NKy region started at the University of Notre Dame when he met and fell in love with Lori Deters of Lakeside Park, a student at nearby St. Mary’s College.
Lori is the daughter of the late Gerald “Jerry” Deters, whose accomplishments included developing the Drawbridge Inn in Fort Mitchell and serving as first chair of the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Despite family ties to the region, the couple married and moved to Baltimore after graduations in 1982. There, Simendinger began a career in banking.
“We lived there for a little while, but always thought we might want to move here,” Simendinger said. “We just had our first daughter and Lori was pregnant with our second when I got a call from Mer Grayson.”
Coming ‘home’
Covington Trust Bank was about to merge with Huntington Bank and there was a position available if Simendinger was interested. Simendinger interviewed with Grayson and in 1985, the couple packed for the move to Northern Kentucky.
When Lori told him she had found a house in Edgewood, Simendinger said, “If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me.”
“She bought it and told the moving vans where to show up and was there and unpacked all of the stuff,” Simendinger recalls. “She sent me directions and here’s a house, my stuff is in it all unpacked and I was home.”
Simendinger went to work at the bank and the couple had two more children, bringing the total to four in six years, two boys and two girls. Nine years later, their fifth and last child, another daughter, was born.
That’s when fate intervened again and Simendinger began the relationship with Jerry Carroll that would change his career path dramatically.
Carroll and Jim Thornton, of Thornton Oil Co., were about to purchase Turfway Park and Covington Trust was lending some of the money. The transaction was based on the value of the track, but also the significant land associated with it. Of the 341 acres purchased 128 were rezoned as a real estate development that is now a significant part of the Houston Road retail corridor.
Opportunities at Turfway Park
Renovations began at Turfway Park and a short time later, in 1988, Carroll bought Thornton out and asked Simendinger to come to work for him. Carroll had just completed the first building of the Turfway Ridge Office Park and was planning phase two.
Simendinger agreed, believing that he would be working more on the real estate side than the race track. At that time, however, the real estate business had really slowed down, so the focus shifted to the horse racing business. Simendinger continued to play a more prominent role at Turfway and ultimately became its president.
“We made a lot of nice improvements over there and that was a really good time for Turfway Park,” Simendinger said. “Simulcasting was just beginning and starting to expand to include taking interstate signals. We also really built up what was then known as the Jim Beam Stakes into a major Kentucky Derby prep race and started the Kentucky Cup Day of Racing.”
The real estate market also began to improve and the extension of Houston Road was completed, which really helped with the marketing of the additional acreage.
“We did a lot of renovating and the real estate development side was going good,” Simendinger said. “We sold a lot of that property off to very good users.”
It was also at this time that the Turfway Park brain trust begin to recognize the value of introducing casino gambling at race tracks.
“I think you have to credit Jerry Carroll for a lot of that,” Simendinger said. “We had envisioned what it could be and we knew that combining horse racing with casino gambling, or at least slot machines, could be very beneficial.”
Neither Carroll nor Simendinger were fans of casino gambling, but they knew that, like it or not, it was coming to the region and Turfway had to try to be a part of it.
“Once Indiana got riverboat gambling, that changed everything forever,” Simendinger said. “We were operating a business and what people have to understand is that when you run a horse track, you are a steward for a lot of people’s lives. That money and that business flows through us, so the decisions that we made on a daily basis were always based on what’s good for the horsemen and how we could increase purses.”
Jerry Carroll reached out to the editor of International Gaming and Wagering Business magazine to get input on who he should consult with in the gaming industry for advice.
“We really thought that combining casino gambling with horse racing would be a big winner,” Simendinger said.
Memorable meeting with Steve Wynn
Among those recommended were the Promus Companies, a hotel group that also operated Harrah’s casinos, and Las Vegas casino magnate Steve Wynn.
Carroll set a meeting with Wynn in July 1993, which turned out to be quite a memorable encounter. When Carroll and Simendinger arrived in Las Vegas, they were greeted on the airport tarmac by one of Wynn’s associates who apologized that the casino owner could not meet them in person, but still wanted to see them.
When they arrived at the Mirage casino, they were escorted to an office where Wynn came in perfectly coiffed but, quite uncharacteristically, wearing gym clothes. Wynn apologized for his appearance, then explained that he had spent the night getting his daughter back from kidnappers.
“We are sitting at a small, round table and he starts talking about the kidnapping,” Simendinger said. “He said he got a phone call from his daughter and she said ‘daddy they got me.’”
In a story that has become part of Las Vegas lore, Wynn took $1.4 million in cash from the casino coffers, had it delivered to the kidnappers and recovered his daughter, Kevyn Wynn, unharmed from the back seat of her car at McCarran International Airport. The kidnappers were later apprehended and imprisoned.
“We were the first people he saw after he got her back,” Simendinger said. “It was unreal.”
Carroll eventually ended up in a joint venture with Harrah’s but Simendinger said the meeting with Wynn is one he will never forget.
With Turfway unable to get approval from the State legislature for slot machines, and with casino gaming cutting into its customer base, Carroll began looking at other ways to generate revenue.
A conversation with Bob Levy, who owned Atlantic City Race Course at that time, led Carroll to begin looking at NASCAR. Dover Downs Raceway, a harness track in Delaware that shares land with Dover International Speedway, was doing very well and Carroll recognized NASCAR was becoming increasingly popular.
“As Jerry looked into it, NASCAR looked like a better opportunity and it soon became clear we couldn’t do anything in Florence, so I began scouting sites,” Simendinger said.
Looking was easy, finding was a little more challenging.
Finding a Kentucky Speedway home
Simendinger needed to identify about 1,000 acres at a reasonable price, convenient to Louisville, Lexington and Cincinnati, that was developable and in a county that permitted alcohol. After an exhaustive search, he came upon the Gallatin County site that would become the home of Kentucky Speedway.
Turfway was sold to a partnership that included GTech, Keeneland and Harrah’s and Kentucky Speedway was completed in June, 2000. The next challenge for Simendinger was to build a schedule.
“We had to get races here, so we bought Louisville Speedway to get a truck race and brought that up to here,” Simendinger said. “After doing that for one year, NASCAR granted us what was then the Nationwide Series and is now the Xfinity series, race. We also had the IndyCar series here for several years.”
Landing a Sprint Cup
In the racing business, however, there are two types of track – those that have a Sprint Cup race and those that don’t.
“(Sprint Cup) is what people want to see,” Simendinger said. “They are willing to pay to see it and companies will pay to be associated with it. The media rights are enormous compared to everything else, so it’s really the difference between making it and not making it.”
After several years of trying to earn a Sprint Cup race, Kentucky Speedway got involved in high-profile litigation with NASCAR in an effort to get on the schedule. When the suit was brought, NASCAR officials dismissed it as without merit, but enlisted the services of prominent attorney David Boies and ultimately prevailed.
“They sure brought out the heavy artillery,” Simendinger said. “As I talk about this stuff now it’s interesting how fate kind of lends a hand in things because Bruton Smith was one of the people that we deposed.”
Kentucky Speedway gets new owner
Smith, owner of Speedway Motorsports Inc. (SMI), began to see Kentucky Speedway as a good investment. When the litigation was resolved, Smith called Carroll and entered into discussions to purchase the track.
Smith had something Carroll did not, a speedway in Atlanta with two Sprint Cup races.
“Bruton got a very good deal, but it was done in the middle of 2008 and from the time that we signed the contract to the time we closed was the worst collapse of the U.S. financial system, maybe since the depression,” Simendinger said. “To his credit, Bruton Smith did everything he said he was going to do. He came in and he has probably spent close to $100 million here since he bought it.”
What was not immediately clear is what role Simendinger would play at Kentucky Speedway under the new ownership. He was basically Carroll’s guy and Jerry was now out of the picture. SMI’s portfolio included iconic speedways at Bristol, Sonoma, Las Vegas and Charlotte, so Smih had his choice of experienced personnel and was under no obligation to keep Simendinger.
“It wouldn’t have been fair to make it part of the negotiation because my job was to represent the previous owners and that included following through on the sale agreement,” Simendinger said. “Bruton made the decision that he was going to give me a chance and I think that’s one of the reasons that he and I work so well together. I’ve been around a lot of different businesses over the years, so when somebody spends that kind of money and has a deep bench of seven speedways it was a pretty strong leap of faith for him to do that for me
It was about this time that Simendinger said he also developed a strong working relationship with Gov. Steve Beshear.
“The governor recognized that this was a great opportunity for the state,” Simendinger said. “He also recognized that (Smith) was spending a lot of money for jobs at a time when we needed them because there weren’t that many big projects going on.”
Smith moved the Sprint Cup race from Atlanta to Kentucky Speedway for the 2011 season.
“After all of those years of anticipation, then everything came together and we are now hosting a national race,” Simendinger said.
Unfortunately, that day is remembered by many for the traffic problems that frustrated patrons as much as the thrilling race that saw Kyle Bush dominate the other competitors and survive a late-race caution to emerge victorious.
“Obviously the traffic issues that marred the day are still disappointing to me to this day, but when something like that happens all you can do is apologize and make sure it never happens again,” Simendinger said. “I’m really proud of the way our staff and the governor responded.”
A plan was developed that included Kentucky Speedway purchasing additional land to accommodate parking and working with the state on road improvements. Kentucky State Police also took control of traffic control at the event and a new parking company was hired.
Simendinger used an example from his experiences in the horse racing industry to explain how he addressed the problems.
“When you have a slow horse, and you check it over, you want to find something wrong because if there isn’t anything wrong, then you just have a slow horse” Simendinger said. “When we got in and looked at the traffic situation, I saw a lot of things we could do to make it better. Not only did we make it better, but we are at the head of the class and (the route) coming into Kentucky Speedway is probably the best of any track in America.”
The problems from 2011 seem like ancient history and, except for some unavoidable weather issues, race week has gone off without a hitch.
Kentucky Speedway is now a highly anticipated stop on the Sprint Cup calendar and its rough track is among the favorites of many drivers because it puts a premium on individual skill and the set-up of the car.
“They wanted us to keep it the way it is,” Simendinger said. “What they want is to be able to prove that they are better than the guy next to them and they have a hard time proving that if you take the variant of the race track away from them.”
Quaker State, one of the top sponsors in motorsports initially signed a three-year deal as name sponsor of the race. When that contract was completed the company signed on for another five years, ensuring its place as name sponsor of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quaker State 400.
Kentucky Speedway also hosts a weekend of racing in September that includes an ARCA race and another Xfinity Series event, as well as high-profile concerts and other events.
Simendinger, 56, doesn’t know how long he will remain at the helm of Kentucky Speedway, but has no plans to leave anytime soon.
“This is something that never gets old,” Simendinger said. “I love playing sports and for me this weekend is like putting on a uniform. I never take what we are doing for granted because we are the only major league sporting franchise in our state that repeats every year and we do it right here in Gallatin County.”
________
IF YOU WANT A CHANCE TO WIN TICKETS TO THE BIG RACE ON SATURDAY, SIGN UP FOR THE TRIB’s DAILY E-NEWSLETTER HERE BY 8 A.M. THURSDAY. SIX LUCKY WINNERS WILL GET 2 LOWER DECK TICKETS TO THE BIG SHOW. WINNERS ANNOUNCED AT NOON THURSDAY.