Documentary recalls when Westfield racers took on ‘The Whip’

Date: 1/11/2023

WESTFIELD — When two race car drivers asked Dave Pighetti to help them build a raceway in Westfield, he thought they were crazy. But he helped to make their dream a reality.

For 15 years, Westfield was the “cool place” for racing action. Mini-sprints, quad-4 midgets, modified lites, go-karts, and other competition classes raced every Saturday at Whip City Speedway.

But it’s gone now. The grandstands and most of the buildings scrapped. Equipment to maintain the track sold at auction. The speedway abandoned. A few buildings and a tattered entrance sign are the only reminders that it existed.

“I can still picture the cars going around the track. It’s a shame. If it wasn’t for the good times we had here, it would hurt even more,” said Pighetti, the only surviving co-owner of the former Whip City Speedway.

He recalled his involvement in the speedway in a new documentary, “Remembering Whip City,” by Connecticut-based Vault Productions. Released last year, the 90-minute video available on YouTube.com tells how three racers brought dirt racing to Westfield from 1995 until 2010. Circumstances beyond their control led to its sudden, heartbreaking end.

Video footage taken during construction and various photographs of racers capture the excitement of the speedway. Interspersed are interviews with the Pighetti family as well as family members of the other former co-owners, and racers.

They reminisce about the positive energy generated by the speedway, the fun racers had, why fans enjoyed coming to see them, and the sadness they feel about its demise.

A Westfield resident for more than 80 years, Pighetti had a brief career racing stock cars at the former Riverside Park Speedway in Agawam before becoming one of the owners and builders of the Westfield speedway.

The idea for a speedway in Westfield came from two local racers in the 1990s. Frank Ferrara and Bill Guertin were tired of traveling to Connecticut, New Hampshire or New York to race.

They planned to build the speedway on land that was a stump dump off North Road (Route 202), at the end of the main runway at Barnes Airport. Along with a collection of stumps, there also was all kinds of junk – old roofs, roofing material and other stuff – as well as barrels of oil that needed to be removed before construction could begin.

“It took them quite a while to get to where they could build it up. They spent a good year or more getting everything ready to build,” recalled Pighetti.

They worked nights after their full-time jobs, as well as on weekends.

“We were really zapped up to build this place,” he added. “And we had many volunteers helping us.”

White it was being built, Lane Construction of Westfield was repaving Interstate 91. Pighetti arranged to have old asphalt milled from the highway hauled to the speedway site. It was used to pave the road coming into the parking area for spectators, as well as in front of the grandstands and the pit area.

Pighetti’s son Steve recalled that once the grandstands went in, it was “a real big moment” for the speedway.

“I think everybody was pretty charged about that,” he said. “It meant the track was 99 percent done.”

The grandstands included a tower about 40 feet high in the back. Inside was an announcer’s booth and driver scores were posted on the outside.

“You could see the whole place from up there,” said Dave Pighetti.

A grand opening took place the second week of June in 1995. Nicknamed “The Whip,” it had a quarter-mile semi-oval clay track. Fans and racers alike were excited about the whole operation.

Straightaways were about 30 feet wide, and turns were about 45 feet wide. Go-karts raced in the afternoons, using the front straightaway and a loop inside the infield.

A family-oriented environment – good food, inexpensive admission prices, clean bathrooms with hot and cold running water, races that ended by 10 p.m. — helped to draw large crowds.

“The first season was unbelievable,” said Carl Sherman from Woodstock, CT, a three-time champion at The Whip. “It was like a superspeedway that was a lot better than other tracks we had been to.”

He said the owners put dirt racing – as well as Westfield and Southern New England – on the map with a “showpiece” speedway that spared no expense.

“This facility – the lights, the bleachers, the bathrooms, the scoring tower, the pits – was top-notch in every way,” said Sherman.

“Going to run at a track that was built by racers for racers was really important,” recalled Tim Bertrand of Southwick, another former racing champion at the speedway.

Many racers were local to Western Massachusetts and nearby towns in Connecticut.

“A racetrack in your backyard? Who wouldn’t want that?” said Steve Pighetti.

In 2010, there were rumors that the owners were ready to get out of running the speedway and were considering putting it up for sale. Instead, the city canceled the lease. No more racing.

“We didn’t have much choice,” said Dave Pighetti. “The speedway was gone. We couldn’t sell it because we didn’t have a lease.”

He explained that the city wanted the land to develop an aviation-related business. Pighetti added that just before a deal was finalized, the Federal Aviation Administration denied the plan, because the proposed facility would be in line with the main runway. It was never built. Dave Pighetti said that was “like putting salt on the wound.”

“I think there would be more closure if there was some fancy office building there,” added Steve Pighetti.

“It was my childhood – the only track I ever raced at,” said 2002 juniors kart champion Kendall Cote from Waterford, CT. “If you were to go to your home track and smell the fumes and just be there, it would bring back all those memories. But unfortunately, those are gone.”

Glenn Pessell III is another former Whip City champion. The Bozrah, CT, racer was shocked when he heard the track closed. The final race was Oct. 10, 2010.

“It never seemed like it was a financial issue. The place always had a solid following. There were a lot of cars in the pits. It just didn’t make any sense. It really hurts.”

The video, which can be found at bit.ly/rp13ne, is one of a documentary series by Vault Productions about stories of automobile racers and racing throughout Southern New England.

“We have tons of preliminary ideas on other stories, including the Riverside Park Speedway and the old Eastern States Expo races from the ’60s, but at this point, they’re just episode ideas,” said owner, producer and editor Tom “Sid” DiMaggio.