RACING

that I had been selected,” Kreitzer said. “It was unexpected but very nice.”

From track prep to promotions to even a stint as a driver, Kreitzer has done it all in Central Pennsylvania.

“My dad, Will, promoted Silver Spring from its inception, and I literally grew up in auto racing,” Kreitzer said. “It was something that became second nature to me as well as my entire family. We were all involved and enjoyed it and worked on it as a family.”

The land upon which Silver Spring was built was owned by Kreitzer’s maternal grandfather.

“He was approached by the Penn-Mar Racing Association, which was a stock-car club at the time, about building a track for Wednesday night racing,” Kreitzer said. “He was an entrepreneur, and he purchased the property during the World War II timeframe.

“He had an auction house and livestock market already on site, so, he proceeded to construct the speedway. After one night, Penn-Mar didn’t think they were going to be able to race (weekly). So, my grandfather put my dad, who had an interest in auto racing, in charge and that’s how it all started.”

By the time Alan was 12, he was running the water truck at the track on Fridays. His dad would water the track on

Saturdays.

A few years later, after Alan admitted he was a bit of a pain in the butt, his dad gave him his first taste of running the grader.

“To this day, I truly enjoy running the grader,” Kreitzer said.

It was not an unfamiliar sight to see Kreitzer on the grader at other tracks that he has promoted.

Kreitzer spent the 1976 season racing in the sportsman division at Silver Spring, but it started to become a bit of a problem with his dad being the track promoter.

“I enjoyed the racing, but I really enjoyed the promotional side of the sport more,” he said.

Kreitzer graduated from Elizabethtown College in 1979 with a degree in business administration, economics and computer science. He worked at Merrill Lynch in Harrisburg right out of school as a stockbroker.

“I was still doing promotions at the time as dad took care of the track during the day so that I could work a real job and I did the promotions in the evening,” Kreitzer noted.

In 1986, his dad passed away and Kreitzer was trying to keep the real job and the speedway going at the same time, but it came to be that it was too much to do.

“I wasn’t able to do due justice to both jobs on a full-time basis, so I resigned my position at Merrill Lynch and took over the promotions at Silver Spring full-time,” he said.

The speedway closed in 2005, but most of its Saturday night programs were moved to nearby Williams Grove, also on Saturday nights.

Kreitzer is quick to point out the success of the track not only came from the family but from those who work behind the scenes as well.

“They were more than just friends, they became family over time, and I was very blessed at all of the tracks that I was at to have great people working for me,” he said,

Among them is his wife Sherry of 36 years. The couple has been together for a half-century. Her dad was a car owner at Silver Spring and of Alan’s four sisters, two are married to racing people.

Kreitzer noted it was his dad who started the Sportsman 100 event at Silver Springs. Race fans still talk about the drivers who won the event at the track.

In 1991, while operating Susquehanna Speedway, Kreitzer produced an idea that turned out to be one of his biggestever contributions to the Central Pennsylvania sprint-car scene.

“We were trying to run a Sunday-night, sprint-car show and it’s not easy as you are at the end of the line, both for fan money and cars,” he said. “And on our holiday weekend, like the July 4 holiday, a lot of our good cars were leaving us to go to Ohio Speedweek.’’

“So, the thought was that if the local tracks at that time,

(Williams Grove, Lincoln, Susquehanna), would go together and promote a series, then it might keep some of our guys at home.”

The late Hall of Fame inductee Steve Smith won the first five-race series, and that was the birth of Pennsylvania Sprint Car Speedway Week. It remains one of the most anticipated events on the sprint-car calendar to this day.

The following year, Silver Spring, Path Valley, Hagerstown, and Selinsgrove joined the schedule. The series has grown exponentially since.

The 2023 season marks the 34th year of the event and its biggest point fund ever at $30,000 with six of the 10 nights paying $10,000 to win the feature.

“It has turned into something pretty good,” Kreitzer said in an understatement. “Nick Toro at Williams Grove saw the value of trying to keep the local drivers at home. I think the other tracks were kind of a ‘show-me thing’ and they wanted to see if it would work and after the first year, they saw the value of it.”

Kreitzer added, “I have personally found that cooperation in Central Pennsylvania is pretty good when you have something reasonable, and I think Speed Week is that. I got along well with all the promoters throughout the years.”

And at this stage in life, Kreitzer is showing no signs of slowing down in his love for motorsports.

“I still enjoy watching racing,” he said. “Dirt track racing is one of the most exciting things to be involved with. I’ve never lost that passion.”

And that’s something even the Godfather of Soul could dig.