July 25, 2003

CHARLES GAL, Special to The Journal

Build it and they will ... race.

Stratotech Park International Raceway, near Fort Saskatechewan, is the realization of a longtime dream for Dan Beith. He wanted to build a top-level raceway where motorbike and kart racing would have a local home in northern Alberta.

An avid motorcyclist and motocross racer in his teen years, Beith, 48, also became an avid kart racer. But, his passion for the motor sports could only recently be revitalized after retiring from his safety equipment manufactunng business a few years ago.

"Growing up interferes with having fun," he added, referring to how raising a family and making a living can be impediments to chasing one's hobbies.

Design of the park began in 1999 and construction was completed in May of 2001 at a cost of several million dollars. Beith explains that even he doesn't know the exact figures for the total cost, but believes that an estimate of $3 million “Is close enough.”

However, the originally intended location was just outside of Sherwood Park, but the application for its construction was rejected partly because it was deemed too close to residential areas. So, onward he looked, until he found a suitable place just outside of Fort Saskatchewan.

“lt's short as far as national standards go, but it's worked out well as a road course for these guys,” explained Beith, owner of Stratotech Park

Beith moved to Alberta as a 23 year-old newlywed from Ontario in 1976 and almost immediately opened his business, which took a few years to get off the ground in its initial stages

“For about two years, my wife and I lived in our warehouse until things got going,” recalled Beith.

“I'm a racer and a racing fan. There are guys who are one or the other, but there's not a lot who are both,” he said. Beith credits the success of his business, personal life and race-track in large part on good friends and his wife of 27 years.

Stratotech Park hosts not only motor bike racing, including Superbike and Motard, but also Ford SVT (SpecialVehicle Team) -including SVT Ford Lightning trucks-time races as well as numerous kart races in a given season.

There are five bike races per season, which include Superbike pros, juniors, as well as Motard. In addition, there are 17 kart races and 10 junior kart races. The motorbike races are one weekend every month, on Saturdays and Sundays, and are scheduled so as not to interfere with any races that are held in Calgary.

A typical motorbike race day begins at 11 a.m. and continues to 5 p.m. in which eight classes of bikes run with two rounds each for a total of 16 sets of races.

The polymer asphalt track at Stratotech is 1,765 metres long and 10 metres wide. There are five, six and eight degree banked corners with nine big turns throughout the course that's built on 35 acres of land that also houses a pro shop, concession, parking lot and spectator stand.

Strategically placed along the outside of the course's turns and bends are what appear to be huge grey foam bales. These are, in fact, specially designed motorbike crash barricades originating from Austria.

“We've got a video of a guy hitting one of them at 100 miles per hour and then his bike goes right in behind him into the wall, and he gets up and walks away from it," said Beith.

Back on pit road, Clint McBain, a professional Canadian national rider for Suzuki, was assessing the damaged and dented gas tank of his blue and white Suzuki Superbike. He was one of those who crashed in one of the earlier races that day.

“Normally if you crash, you want to let go of the bike so you don't get tangled up when it starts to flip, and as soon as I let go of it, it started to flip,” said McBain slightly shaking his head at the unpleasant recollection.

But, that Sunday McBain had broken Stratotech Park's long held record for best lap time ever, coming in under one minute.

Speeds reach up to 200 km/h as riders race on the straightaway and then steeply lean their bikes precariously into each bend of the course. Their engines' angry whines and roars fill the air during the first major race day of the season.

At corner No. 3, Cameron Braaten, a young rider in his twenties from Regina, wiped out his green Superbike as he leaned into the wide turn.

He didn't appear to be hurt, but was very concerned about his helmet and searched for signs of damage to his suit. It was a clean spill with most of damage incurred by his bike.

“This is the first spill of the season so far, but you never know. It's part of the game,” said Braaten, yelling over top of the screaming bikes that passed by us to our left and then back on our right after turning the next corner. Every year, he and a group of riders regularly come from Saskatchewan to take part in the races here in Alberta, he said.

Mike Steeves and Rene Schuller, corner marshalls at the hairpin turn No. 8, know something about motorbike crashes. Corner marshalling is a job each takes very seriously, even though they are volunteers, as are most of the track marshalls.

“I'd say there's about one or two crashes on average per race,” said Steeves yelling over the noise around us. Of course, that doesn't mean that every race has a crash; some races have none while others have several crashes.

Between races, the duo walk about and carefully examine their assigned portion of the track sweeping away any gravel or debris they notice littering the track. “Our corner is so clean, you could eat off of it,” said Schuller.

You can find out more about Stratotech Park, its track schedules and other information through their Web site at www.stratotech.ca.