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11/24/2008

Freese Finds Success on the Other Side of the Counter
by Tracy Chirico

Reprinted with permission from Area Auto Racing News
30th Annual Race Car Builders' Guide 2008-2009

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

 

 

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