Dennis Freese knows circle track cars and circle track parts.
After all, he used to be a racer himself.
He had raced a Freeport Modified, which he parked for a year
when NASCAR came in at Freeport Speedway.
He returned in a Late Model, with Ridgerunner Speed in New
Hyde Park as a sponsor.
“They were engine building, fabrication, circle track, drag
racing,” Freese explained. “There was three partners and they
decided to sell the place, and they couldn’t sell it as a single
unit, so they started selling pieces off.
“They sold the engine department, the fabrication department,
and the drag race department, and all that was left was the
circle track department, and no one wanted it. All the years I
raced, I constantly said to myself, ‘I’m on the wrong side of
the counter.
"I went to the race track, and I paid the photographer, I
paid the tire guy, I paid the parts guy, I paid the hot dog guy,
I paid to get in the back gate, and I paid welding insurance,
and I’m putting the show on.”
So, in 1980, Freese jumped to the other side of the counter,
buying the circle track department of his former sponsor.
With that, Oval Speed Unlimited was born.
Today, every racer at Riverhead Raceway knows Oval Speed
Unlimited, and up until its closing, racers at Wall Stadium knew
it also.
At Riverhead Raceway, Freese is the man parked by the pit
entrance gate, where you are sure to find his fully-stocked
truck on any given Saturday when a last-minute fix needs to be
made, a part gets broken, or an early wreck threatens to end a
racer’s night.
Freese is also the man behind the counter in the very crowded
but well-organized building on Sunrise Highway in Massapequa
Park, answering phones and handing out parts until 10 pm on any
given weeknight except Wednesdays, when Ron Sprague fills in so
Freese can have a night off.
What started as a part-time business conducted after Freese
got off from his normal job has turned into the single biggest
source for anything and everything circle track racing related
on Long Island, and a full-time occupation for its owner.
In the beginning, Freese would work during the day, and come
open the doors at Oval Speed at 7:30 p.m., staying as late as
necessary to service his customers. That often meant not heading
home until midnight or later.
These days, the doors are open from noon until 6 p.m., when
Freese closes for dinner. The store reopens at 7:30 p.m.,
closing for the night at 10 p.m.
“The newer racer seems to find me more during the day,"
Freese said. "The older racer – my older customers – were so
used to me only being open evenings that, three years later,
they were surprised to find out I was open during the day.
“Every time I get a newer racer, they seem to be able to get
in – send their wife, send their girlfriend, send a friend, or
pass by, and UPS helps. I’m to a point now where I’ve seriously
considered cutting some night hours out because I’m not as busy
in the evenings as I am during the day.”
So far, that has not happened, but it is a possibility in the
near future.
The inventory Freese has is comprehensive.
“I’ve serviced Riverhead for over 20 years, and I was
servicing Wall Stadium up until it closed last year for almost
20 years with a parts truck,” Freese explained.
He does not even venture to estimate the amount of inventory
on hand at any given point in time.
“I have enough to service everything that needs to be
serviced,” he said. “My racer can’t come in to my store on
Tuesday and need something for Saturday and have me tell him
I’ll order it for him.
“He needs to walk in on Tuesday, and walk out with it on
Tuesday. That’s why I try to have everything in stock that my
racer would possibly need.”
That holds true for the in-store inventory during the week,
and the on-truck inventory at the track on Saturdays as well.
“There shouldn’t be anything that you walk to the back of my
truck and ask me for that I don’t have,” he stated. “There’s no
reason for me to be there if I can’t service the racer.
“When I started, if you came to my truck and asked for
something and I didn’t have it, I’d write it down. If somebody
came a second time and I didn’t have it, you can bet the third
week I’d have it. If it was something common, I’d put it on
right away. You can rebuild a car out of the back of this
truck.”
Last year, Riverhead Raceway brought back the Legends
division for the first time since the 2000 season ended.
Freese was approached, and he became the official dealer for
Legends cars and parts on Long Island. In recent years, car
counts have been down at Riverhead, as they have at many short
tracks across the country.
“I took on the Legends as sort of a ‘filler’ because car
counts were down at Riverhead, and then Wall Stadium closed,”
Freese said.
Now, in addition to the inventory he has historically
carried, Freese also carries a full stock of parts for Legends
cars.
“Wall was probably a quarter of my business,” he said. “I was
the only parts truck at Wall.”
The loss of Wall Stadium is not the first time Freese has
seen a portion of business disappear. This year, the only race
outside of Riverhead Raceway that Freese will service with a
parts truck is the Turkey Derby later this month.
“I used to do the Race of Champions at Flemington, and at
Pocono,” he said.
The economy as of late has impacted business for many
involved in motorsports.
“In the past, when the economy went up and down, my business
stayed the same,” Freese said. “The economy didn’t seem to
affect what went on here up until three or four years ago.
“You started getting race tracks that were closing, and the
car counts have really suffered. Racing didn’t suffer with the
ups and downs in the economy in all of the years that I’ve been
doing this until the last few years. Everything is really tight,
but hopefully soon it will stabilize.”
According to Freese’s own estimation, 90 percent of his
business is in circle track racing.
“Part of what I do along with servicing the racer, is that I
service other speed shops, in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New
Jersey,” Freese noted. “I have a large manufacturer base, and I
deal with a large number of companies.
“A smaller speed shop can’t do that. They can’t buy directly
from the manufacturer. So they buy from me as a jobber. I sell
stuff to the guy who services Mountain (Speedway), because he’s
a small guy and he doesn’t have the buying power that I do, but
he still needs to have the merchandise. I sell to a handful of
other shops.”
Freese’s business does not lie solely in circle track racing,
however.
“I do some racing fire trucks, some road race stuff, a little
bit of drag race stuff,” he said. “But I don’t go looking for
it. I know circle track stuff.
“If you walk in the door and you own a drag car, and you
don’t know what you want and I don’t know what you want, there’s
a problem. Then we’re ordering the wrong things.”
So Freese’s involvement in other areas is very limited.
“In most cases, if you own a circle track car and you walk in
the door and you don’t know what you want, I do,” Freese
said.”Or I can send you in the correct direction to get you what
you want.
“I tried selling other stuff. I started it, and I stopped it
right away. I’ll stick with what I know. It also gives me the
ability to concentrate on the manufacturers that I need to have
for circle track stuff. I don’t need to have rack and pinions
for street rods.”
There is a side to the business that most don’t realize.
“It is more paperwork than I ever imagined,” Freese said.
“One-third of the hours that I spend on this business – whether
it’s here or at home – is paperwork. People say, ‘He sits behind
the counter and sells parts,’ and they think that’s all I do.
There is a phenomenal amount of paperwork.”
That includes everything from dealing with manufacturers to
achieve warehouse distributor status, to ordering and billing.
During the racing season, Freese has a regimented schedule
for completing all of his necessary paperwork, which means he
sometimes is up as late as 3 a.m. to be sure that it all gets
done.
“I am a warehouse distributor, or WD, for roughly 30
different companies, and it takes a lot to go to each of those
companies and build a rapport and prove to them that you’re
worth being a distributor,” he said. “There’s a lot of work that
goes on behind the scenes that people don’t see.”
In addition, staying on top of new trends and technologies is
key.
“You have to keep up with new stuff that’s going on,” Freese
noted. “Every year, I go to shows, because you have to be on top
of what’s coming out. You don’t want your customer coming in and
telling you about something you don’t know about.”
Regardless of whether it is a hot new trend or an old,
reliable item – whether it is Saturday at the track or during
the week – if it is something that is needed for circle track
racing that you are looking for, you will eventually cross paths
with Dennis Freese of Oval Speed Unlimited.
Oval Speed is located on 4786B Sunrise Highway, Massapequa
Park, NY 11762, (516) 541-7920.
Source: Tracy
Chirico/Area Auto Racing News 30th Annual Race Car
Builders' Guide
Posted:
November 24, 2008