EVANS MILLS/THUNDER ALLEY SPEEDPARK HISTORY
Special thanks to Gary Rowe for contributing historical information

Track construction began in 1966 before Evans Mills opened its doors for the first time on Sunday afternoon ---no lights yet installed for night racing--- August 6, 1967 as a dirt track; DIRT Motorsports Hall of Famer Guy “Shorty” Robinson won the very first race and Fred Gibson was eventually crowned the inaugural points champion.

The track was owned by a corporation comprised of a group of Boonville, N.Y. residents, but the main spark plug was Bobby Zeigler and his brothers Dick and Karl John along with Watertown Businessman Art Parker. Utica resident and former Watertown Speedway competitor George Mahaffy was the flagman. Local radio DJ George Nehr was the first announcer but later those duties were taken over by John Burr (corporate shareholder), marking the first time he had ever announced a race.

Most of the competitors were drawn from nearby Watertown Speedway and while Evans Mills allowed the overhead V-8 engine, Watertown rules mandated either flat head V-8 engines or in line 6 cylinder overhead engines.

Dust was always a problem because of the Sunday afternoon racing and lack of equipment to prep the track due to a limited budget. And because of this dust (also because the Zeigler family left Watertown and went asphalt racing as running on pavement was becoming the "in" thing) Evans Mills was paved in 1968. The paving delayed the re-opening of Evans Mills until June 23, 1968 and Gary Reddick won the first 30-lap modified feature on the asphalt track. Racing under the lights at Evans Mills began on July 21, 1968.

Evans Mills officials tried to run Saturday nights in 1969 directly in competition against Watertown Speedway but a major loss of attendance forced management to switch to Friday nights and then back to Sunday nights in June, where it stayed for the remainder of the year.

During this time period weekly teams were running the same cars on both the Watertown dirt and Evans Mills asphalt. But in the early 1970s more and more cars started to be developed especially for either dirt or asphalt which caused the fields at Evans Mills to shrink. In May of 1971 Evans Mills again decided to race on Saturday nights in direct competition with Watertown but after one week and a small crowd it went back to Sunday nights.

As the 1970s progressed the track began to lose it's fan support primarily because many of the area stars stayed with dirt surfaces. The high expense of asphalt racing and the fact that more and more asphalt tracks were starting to struggle and either fold or convert to dirt added to Evans Mills' plight.

As an asphalt track during the 70s Evans Mills hosted many big names including national Modified champions Richie Evans and Jerry Cook, and legendary driver Maynard Troyer. Modern-day pilot 'Barefoot' Bob McCreadie won his first-ever race there on May 11, 1975, the year after Watertown closed.

Declining attendance and lack of fan interest prompted the Zeigler brothers to lease Evans Mills to Art Parker, who in turn walked away from the business. Race car driver Ronnie White and his father Francis White eventually purchased the track and the asphalt was re-covered with dirt.

Only a couple seasons of racing took place before Francis became extremely sick and passed away. Soon after, Ronnie traded the track to a real estate investor that was never interested in racing so it sat dormant.

Former Watertown Speedway driver Wendell Turcotte next leased the property with several backers including Walt VanTassel, proprietor of a successful moving and storage business, who pumped in thousands just to keep it going.

Turcotte and VanTassel ultimately had a falling out and when the dust finally settled VanTassel black-topped it once again and added Musco lighting. Today, Charlie and Billy Caprara are leasing the facility and dirt has been put back on the track for the third time since the track opened 37 years ago.  The Capraras also have changed the name of the track.  It is now known as “Caprara’s Thunder Alley Speedpark”.

Current DIRT Modified standout Tim Fuller won the last dirt modified feature held at Evans Mills/Thunder Alley Speedpark before it was purchased by VanTassel and converted back to asphalt. From the time the track was built until now nearly every promoter has had a 100-lap fall race and ironically one of those races in the early 70s (when the track was asphalt) was won by Wayne Fuller, Tim’s dad.

Tim Fuller hopes to keep the family tradition alive when the Advance Auto Parts SDS showdown takes center stage in April. Fuller joins north country legend Bob McCreadie and rising star Tim McCreadie as they plan to make Thunder Alley Speedpark a Thursday night home throughout the upcoming race season.