Between the Races: Gary Van Voorhis
March 8, 2006
By Laurel C. Allen
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One of the most well known (and nicest) men behind the scenes of American road racing is Daytona International Speedway’s long-time Director of Events, Gary Van Voorhis. For 16 years, Van Voorhis has watched the riders, the machinery, and the track itself evolve. And although staying on top of things—particularly during Bike Week, which for Daytona staff means a total of five separate events—is no easy feat, the most remarkable thing about Gary isn’t so much his efficiency, but his obvious passion for the sport to which years of his life have been devoted. We caught up with him under the palms of the paddock’s infield for this week’s Wednesday Conversation.

Daytona International Speedway Director of Events Gary Van Voorhis has 16 year's worth of Daytona memories, and he'll be glad to tell you about them—as soon as Bike Week is over. LCA photo

How did you get introduced to motorsports?
I got into motorcycling—actually, into auto racing—a long time ago when I was in the military and won a camera in a card game. I was stationed in Belgium at the time and we were always looking for things to do. That was in the early 1960s, and going to the races and showing up with a camera, you could sort of bluff your way in. So I got a few photo passes and took some photos of car races. And actually, I saw some very early stages of motocross over there, which was quite interesting because they left the tree stumps up about four feet high and you just sort of ran around them, then through the stream or whatever…. I mean, talk about your natural terrain! Ward Robinson’s Unadilla was a pristine racetrack compared to that when it first started. Anyway, when I got discharged I went back to Poughkeepsie, New York, where I lived, and got involved with some friends who road raced out of a Triumph shop there. The first time I came to Daytona was in 1970 with them to take pictures, and I haven’t missed one since.

Have you ever raced bikes yourself?
No. No way [laughs]. I learned early on that I was not a racer, but I was a little bit better with words and photos. When I moved to Florida 15 years ago, I brought my motorcycle with me and basically sold it a couple years after that for a bicycle.

How did you actually end up working for the track?
In 1972 I got a job with Cycle News East as associate editor. I was there ‘til 1985, then went over to CS Communications and MotoWorld, went from there to work with Chet Burkes at Motorweek Illustrated, and there was a little slack time after that so I came down here and worked for Daytona. I came down to work for the PR staff, to give them someone with a motorcycle background. That was in ’87 and ’88, and in ’89 they offered me a full-time job in Public Relations to give them contacts with European teams, as well as the American teams. I did that for approximately six years before moving over into the operations department, acting as an operational liaison for all of our events, which gave me a chance to put all of the three or four things I’d done before into play.

Van Voorhis chats with Suzuki's Morgan Broadhead in the Daytona paddock. LCA photo

As Director of Events, what sorts of responsibilities do you have during a week like this?
I guess I oversee a lot of stuff [laughs]. I’m pretty much behind the scenes; it’s a lot of facilitation, a lot of phone calls between people, a lot of hook-ups, a lot of knowing your contacts, what you can and can’t do with the racetrack, placement of TV cameras, etc. Plus I float in and out of the media center a bit to answer background questions. During the NASCAR events there are a tremendous number of people working with me, but with our hands-on events like motorcycles, there are a couple of guys who give me a hand inside, but I guess ultimately I’m responsible for it all. I do garage rentals, all sorts of other facilitations—I was just talking to SPEED Channel about cameras and cables, before that I was talking to a guy who has a garage issue, then working with Jay Howard, who’s going to produce our opening ceremonies for the supercross as well as spots for the JumboTron, and before that I was talking to Ron Barrick earlier from AMA scoring…. It’s interesting to be involved in, because we basically run five different events: We’ve got CCS, we’ve got vintage, we’ve got the AMA guys, the dirt trackers, and we have supercross. And in one form or another, somewhere down the line, I’m involved in everything.

You were already a veteran of the industry before taking the full-time job with Daytona, but was it still—especially considering the track’s prominence in road racing at that time—was it still mind-blowingly cool to realize you’d become such a big part of it?
Oh, man. To this day—and as I said, I started in 1970—to this day when I come through the twin tunnels and drive up and pop out into there…. The first time I came here, I drove through, looked around, and just said, “Wow.” And I still do that, because the place is so big and it’s just all there. You pop out and you’re suddenly inside the racetrack—if it’s the 500, there are a couple hundred thousand people there; if it’s Bike Week, it’s a little more mellow with tents here, bikes there, but wow. Yeah, it’s still cool. Still cool, for sure.

The most historic of all American road race circuits, Daytona—and the Daytona 200—continues to evolve. CJ photo

After 16 years, Daytona must feel like a real presence in your life—its own entity.
Oh yeah, absolutely. And we’ve been through some things together, and seen some new things. We’ve been through the garages that they built two years ago now, which are quite a bit different from our old garages; they offer a few challenges in terms of ease of moving around, but they’ve really dressed the place up and made it brighter. It’s real cool; you’ve got the Fan Zone now, you can go up on top of the garages and look down on all the transporters, you can look into the garages from the windows in the back, so it’s been pretty neat and it’s solved one of my headaches about parking the transporters. Of course, we’re about to roll into the supercross and that’ll present it’s own problems because it’s a stand-alone, one-day event—roll ‘em in, roll ‘em out. You don’t rest too much during this week. I’ll let out a sigh of relief when they wave the green flag for the 200, because then I have a chance to sit back and watch, walk up and down the pits and talk to the guys.

I’ve heard that the weather leading up to the 200 has as much to do with ticket sales as the weather on the day of the event.
Absolutely, absolutely. I think the first rainout of the 200 was in 1995, and it took us a few years to recover from that because we ran it the next week. Weather plays such a tremendous role; here we’ve had probably six or seven days of good sun coming into the event and it look likes it’s going to be great all the way through, and that makes all these bikers out there think, Hey, let’s go in and line the fence of the infield. Weather like that really helps the walk-up sales. Pre-race ticket sales are really good, but day-of helps a lot. And for supercross, this is the third year we’ve done it under the lights and it’s starting to catch on that now we’re under the lights, now it’s Friday night, etc. It’s good; everything’s good.

From Eric Bostrom and Miguel Duhamel to Giacomo Agostini and Don Emde, Van Voorhis has seen them all. CJ photo

Looking back on your career, can you think of any defining moments that you’ll always associate with this track?
Oh yeah—lots. A lot of them happened early on…. Probably the first one was Don Emde’s Daytona 200 win on his 350 Yamaha, and the main reason there was I was just about to be hired by Cycle News and I was out there taking photos, and my photo ended up on the cover. I remember when Giacomo Agostini came here—that was ’74 or ’75, I believe—and he won the race, but here we have the world star; I mean, he was the god of cycling and he came in here like a god. The guy walked down pit road and all the women swooned. Here’s a guy who waited ‘til the four-minute board to put his gloves on and just leisurely went out for the warm-up lap and looked like he wasn’t going to do anything, then went out and kicked everyone’s butt. The year after that, or maybe it was the same year, we had a young upstart named Johnny Cecotto from Venezuela come. He was pushed off the grid because he was leaking a little water and ended up coming from the back of the pack—which at that time was 77 to 80 bikes—to finish third. It was an amazing ride, and then the next year he wins the race on tires you could literally see the cords through, and the Venezuelans rush the track…. It was something to see.

Scott Russell also sticks in my mind, Miguel [Duhamel] sticks in my mind, and Matthew [Mladin]—Matthew is an extreme competitor who had tremendous focus. And when Anthony Gobert first came here for a Dunlop tire test in December, I honestly thought I’d seen the second coming of Kenny Roberts; he had such innate talent. Amazing. It’s just really cool to know a lot of those guys and get a Christmas card from them once in a while. Roberts and I have been buddies since ’72; [Jay] Springsteen and Gary Nixon are buddies, too. A lot of guys, a lot of memories.

It’s great—you clearly have so much passion for this sport, and here you are at the helm of what’s traditionally been the most historic, special racetrack in America.
Yes. Absolutely. And you know what’s always amazed me? In the first couple years I worked for the track, I used to travel a lot to other facilities, and you’d get in conversations with other people who’d ask where you worked, and when you said “Daytona,” there was just silence. Daytona … wow. That’s how it is.