Jack Doering didn’t tolerate drivers getting nasty with one another at Auto City Speedway.
With as competitive as short-tracking can be, tempers sometimes flare. When they did, such activity was always grounds for getting time off.
However, if a couple guys wanted to duke it out, the former Auto City owner preferred they do it on the track’s front stretch, not in the pits.
“He had a little bit of Barnum & Bailey and a little bit of the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) in him, maybe a lot,” said Dixie Motor Speedway owner Mike Kern, who used to race at Auto City. “Jack had the knack of knowing what people wanted to see.”
Doering was a pioneer in the sense that he realized early on that oval-track racing was more than just cars going around the track. It was entertainment, too.
It was partly because of his foresight into this concept that enabled him to take a bankrupt facility and turn it into one of the top local sports attractions. That foresight and skill has earned Doering, 72, the Special Services Award from the GFASHOF.
“Any short track is in the show business, not the racing business,” Doering said. “The No. 1 person at the track is the race fan.” Doering had always been an avid racing fan and in 1958 he took a job as the track’s people counter. Auto City went bankrupt during the summer of ’58 before reopening a year later under then-owner Joe Grabenhorst.
Doering was elevated to the promoter’s position on July 4, 1959 by Grabenhorst when then-promoter Bob George failed to show up. Over the course of the next 41 years, the Clio resident would transform Auto City from a dirt quarter-mile track into the premier racing facility on the east side of the state.
He became partners with Grabenhorst in 1962 before taking over sole ownership of the track when Grabenhorst died in 1985. During his tenure he added a half mile track in 1960. Both ovals were paved in 1986.
What set him aside from the typical promoter was he wasn’t afraid to occasionally veer away from traditional racing. Various “Hollywood” acts and personalities would make appearances at Auto City during Doering’s watch. Joey Chitwood’s Thrill show, Speedo the Clown, Robbie Knievel and Burt Reynolds all went through Auto City’s gates.
Doering instituted one-on-one spectator drag races, had skydivers parachute into the track and put on motorcycle demolition derbies and fireworks displays. When he owned Dixie, he once staged a professional wrestling match between Dick ‘The Brusier’ and ‘Gorgeous George’.
And boy did his tricks work. Auto City’s seating capacity leaped from 3,000 to 7,000. “Who wouldn’t want to go to a carnival,” said John Doering Jr., Jack’s son. “Who wouldn’t want to go to a big show? Anything he could think of to put on a show he would do.”
Gimmicks aside, Doering knew that besides keeping the fans happy, he also had to give the drivers a reason to come back. He did this by doing whatever he could to help them out and increasing the track’s weekly purse.
Auto City’s purse was initially $300. That figured swelled to $3,000 in 1961 and then to $25,000 in Doering’s final season of 1999. “He was fair with everybody,” said Clio’s Darrell McManus, who raced super late models at Auto City. “He treated everybody the same and he made every racer feel needed.”
Doering was also big into the big-time traveling acts. He booked such notable shows as the American Speed Association, Main Event Racing Series, and the Auto Value Super Sprints. His biggest show was undoubtedly the Colonel’s Firecracker 150, which took place every year on July 4. The winner of the super late-models feature took home a new pickup truck.
“He was a promoters’ promoter,” former Auto Value Motorsports Director Dan Scheuerlein said. “He could not do enough for his sponsors. It was a little bit of Las Vegas.”
Doering’s innovativeness and his passion for the sport earned him an enormous amount of respect in the racing industry. He helped found the Michigan Speedway Promoters Association in 1972 and he was inducted into the Michigan Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1987.
Doering is always quick to point out the success of Auto City was not entirely his doing. He attributes the vast majority of it to his family – wife, Bonnie, and sons John Jr. and Jason – his friends Grabenhorst, Scheuerlein, Don Williamson former Journal Sports Editor Doug Mintline and his many employees.
“I always felt like the luckiest man in the world,” Doering said. “Every day was fun. l never dreaded going to the race track. Maybe I did put a little mark on this town.”
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