GSR KARTWAY LITTLE TRACK, LITTLE CARS, BIG DREAMS

BY BERT LEHMAN

WALK THROUGH the pits at any of the dirt tracks in northeast Wisconsin and chances are you will run into several drivers who got their start in racing by running karts at one of the many local dirt kart tracks.

One of those tracks – GSR Kartway in Clintonville, Wisconsin – has been hosting kart racing since the late 1990s. The track was built by and is still owned by Ed Bertram. When Bertram built the track in the late 1990s, he was selling racing parts to local racers. He had a parts store and also traveled to local race tracks with a parts truck. Bertram still sells parts to local racers, but on a smaller scale.

“My intent with that (kart) track, real honestly up front, was I wanted a way to get more customers in my race store,” Bertram said. “My whole thought behind it was if I can hook them young enough on the kart track then I can maybe drag them up into the store to buy parts and cars and everything else. It never worked that way. But that was one of the reasons I started it and pushed it.”

More than 20 years later, GSR Kartway is still hosting kart races on Wednesday nights during the summer months. That’s something that Bertram said he didn’t expect to happen.

“Did I realize it was going to become what it is today? No way,” Bertram said. “I knew the kart track was being built to teach the kids flags, procedures, the whole ten yards, in order for them to transpose themselves into this (car racing) program.”

Bertram moved to Michigan for a few years and leased the track to others who promoted it. Without those promoters stepping up, Bertram said the track would have probably been shuttered.

“Thank God they were able to take over and keep it running,” Bertram said.

One of those promoters who leased the track was the husband and wife team of Brandon and Sarah Blashe, both of which have a long and strong history in local racing. “We had already been running the Mid-State Ice Racing Club in Marion (Wisconsin), so we had a little bit of experience promoting,” Brandon Blashe said. “I was president of the Fox River Racing Club for two years so I had promotion experience there and we just decided to get into promoting.”

The Fox River Racing Club is the organization that hosts weekly racing in the summer at Wisconsin International Raceway, a half-mile asphalt track in Kaukauna, Wisconsin.

The Blashes promoted GSR Kartway in 2009 and 2010 before taking a break from promoting due to the amount of work it required and the recession that the country was in.

Five years ago, that changed when Bertram asked them if they were interested in a second stint at promoting GSR Kartway.

Even though promoting the kart track is time consuming, both Brandon and Sarah said they enjoyed it, and that is what convinced them to give it another try. “It’s a little bit different with karting because instead of dealing directly with the drivers, you’re dealing with parents. That was a different situation,” Brandon said. “You see the good parts of racing and enjoyment. The kids have a great time and you see the family atmosphere. You also sometimes see the fiery aspect of it when parents get pretty fired up when it’s involving their child. You see both sides. That was a little bit of a new thing for me.

“But at the same time,” Sarah added, “the parents tried to act a little bit more professionally because they’re still trying to be a role model for their own child versus how heated things can get in an adult pit area.”

“With the kids it’s so much fun,” said Brandon. “They come off the track and they have big smiles on their faces and they are so excited, especially in the beginning of the season they are so excited to get out there. It’s really enjoyable. That’s probably my favorite part.”

In order to make the racing fun for all involved, both Brandon and Sarah said it is their goal to run a “good, professional show. We’ve promoted for car racing, so we know what it takes to run a good program, and that’s what we wanted to do,” Brandon said.

Sarah added, “We didn’t want it to be like just backyard racing. We wanted it professional. We wanted a family’s first experience with racing to be a professional experience.”

Since a lot of the kart racers eventually race cars at the local dirt tracks when they get older, Brandon said they try to give karters a similar experience to what they would get racing at a track hosting car racing.

Fans who attend races at GSR Kartway can sit in the bleachers at the track, bring their own lawn chair and sit around the track or sit in their vehicle and watch the races. There is a food stand at the track for fans to visit.

GSR Kartway uses National Karting Association (NKA) sanctioning and uses its rules. Those same rules are also used by another dirt kart track located in Cecil, Wisconsin, which is less than an hour away from GSR Kartway.

“We work closely with them to make sure we’re doing the same program because we share racers,” Brandon said.

“We run the same tire. We run the same motor program and try to run the same rules.”

There are several divisions of karts that race weekly at GSR Kartway, with most of them comprised of kids. “I think this year we averaged in the low 70s. It was a good year,” Brandon said. “This was the best year that we had. We’ve never averaged in the 70s before.”

Brandon said he thinks the high weekly average of karts in 2021 was partly due to the solid racing program he and Sarah have built at the track.

Sarah added that a new kart rental program they started in 2021 also helped. They have four karts, three of which are kiddie karts, available for families to rent if their child is interested in trying kart racing. “That’s really encouraged families that maybe were apprehensive to get involved (to try racing),” Sarah said. “And over this time, we’ve been doing that, I think that’s really helped build it too.”

Brandon added, “We kind of made a decision a few years back to invest in some equipment. It’s expensive. It can be cost prohibitive for anybody to get into racing. Even at the lower division at the big tracks, it’s expensive to get in. We didn’t want it (cost) to be a barrier. If you’re a parent and your child shows an interest in racing, even to buy used equipment, you’re probably spending a minimum of $1,500 to get in. And then what if they hate it? And now you’re trying to sell it. So, we provide a rental. It’s try it before you buy it.”

They said the rental karts were rented out every week of racing in 2021. While it’s not necessarily a goal to prepare kart racers to eventually race cars at the local dirt tracks, both Brandon and Sarah believe that is a benefit of kids racing karts.

Sarah feels racing karts helps build character in kids. “Learning responsibility to keep your equipment up and how you act around other drivers, things like that,” Sarah said.

Brandon added, “Kids learn so quickly, so they learn how to handle a kart, how to drive, how to countersteer. They just learn things quickly as a kid, so when they get to the race track, the big track, they’re ready to go. The basics of how to drive a race vehicle, they got it.”

And when kart racers graduate to car racing, Brandon and Sarah said they feel some satisfaction that they played a part in that by providing a racing program they could learn at.

“We go to Shawano (Speedway) to see some of the kids that raced by us. It’s very fulfilling,” Brandon said. “It’s fun to watch them move up and be successful at the next level of racing. That’s very rewarding. I even try to buy their race apparel.”

Brandon added that graduating kart racers to car racing is essential to keeping racing in general alive in northeast Wisconsin. He said kids need to get hooked on racing at an early age if they plan to race cars someday.

“It’s just different nowadays. There are so many other things kids can do,” Brandon said. “If they’re not hooked on racing by the time they get to driving age, I think the likelihood that people are just going to go into racing like they used to, is small.”

“This is another dynamic that I do see with the karts, is we are getting families involved in karting that no one in their family has raced before,” Sarah said. “We’re literally bringing new families into the sport of racing.”

Realizing that, they said they work with some of the local dirt tracks that host car racing, and have a karting night at their tracks in the summer. “They support us, we support them because they see the value in it too,” Brandon said.

Probably the most famous driver who got his start racing at GSR Kartway is Ty Majeski, originally from Seymour,

Wisconsin. Majeski has advanced up and become one of the top asphalt Late Model drivers in the Midwest and has had limited opportunities to race in the NASCAR truck series.

Majeski’s success, and the success of other karters who have achieved local racing success in cars, shows that dreams can come true. “The little track where big dreams are born,” Sarah said, about GSR Kartway.

While Brandon and Sarah said it is still time consuming to promote GSR Kartway, they learned from their first stint promoting the track and now split up the duties between multiple people. This allows them to try to provide more enjoyment for the kids racing.

“That’s what makes it all worth it,” Sarah said. Brandon added, “For me, it’s the reason I do it. As a promoter you can make some money doing it. It’s never enough to compensate for all that goes into it, but that’s the reason I keep doing it, the satisfaction I get seeing the kids have a good time.”