By Sara Page, Midlothian Exchange
spage@midlothianexchange.com

It’s about 5:45 on a Friday night and the tower at Southside Speedway is starting to come alive. Score keepers are arriving and setting up the electronic keypad for the scoreboard overlooking turn three; drivers and teams are mulling around the infield; and the controlled scramble is on to get concession stands up and running. Co-race directors Chris Stefi and Gary Fox are just sitting down to hash out some last minute notes for the drivers’ meeting at 6 p.m. and catching one last moment of solitude before a night where they will have to deal with everything from storms to wrecks, to technical difficulties and the inevitable unhappy driver.

Friday nights start much earlier for the duo than the 7:30 race start time. They normally arrive around 4:30 p.m., though that can stretch to as early as 3 or 3:30 p.m., depending on meetings and what needs to be done to prepare for the evening’s events. Most Friday nights, they’re in the tower joking around with other officials, tossing back a can of soda for an extra jolt of caffeine and just trying to “unwind and relax and try to take in what we need to do for tonight,” Stefi said.

This night, Stefi is a little later than usual, having been at Richmond International Raceway most of the day trying to help friends, family and officials there prepare for the upcoming open-wheel race weekend. He grants a quick interview and is off for a pre-race talk with co-owner and track promoter Sue Clements. He and Fox arrive back at the tower with 15 minutes to spare before the driver’s meeting.

The two hash out specific times for drivers to go through the pre-race technical inspections. While Fox worries over specific wording for communicating that late tech-inspections will no longer be tolerated, Stefi pulls out his familiar silver laptop to create a quick form on which the Street Stock cars will declare their makes and models.

By 5:59, the two are heading to the tech shed in the infield for the driver’s meeting and fielding questions along the way.

With 75 people gathered around, it is clear that Fox and Stefi are friendly and open, but they also maintain an air of authority, which underscores that they are often called on to deal with problems between drivers. While each person is given every opportunity to air their side of things, the two are clear on one thing: “You don’t need to be out here tearing up your race car and somebody else’s race car and then involve somebody else who’s innocent because the two of you decided to pull some bone-headed move,” Fox says. “Most of them, a week or two later, are pretty calm and rational and reasonable about it.”

After the meeting, the race directors are usually wandering the pits, joking with drivers and razzing crew members. Then it’s back to the tower.

As 7 p.m. rolls around, word comes in that one of the pit officials is having problems with his radio. They coordinate a trade of headsets and by 7:19 are ready to roll. They radio back and forth with other officials stationed around the track while the redraws and special events are happening in victory lane.

The Champ Karts are up first this evening, so word goes out to get the Karts on the track.

It’s now 7:41, 11 minutes after the first race was supposed to start and four minutes after the Karts and scorers were called to their positions. Fox and Stefi are getting antsy after making it clear in the drivers’ meeting that they wanted to be on time and knowing that they’re going to catch some ribbing for this tardiness.

“Tell them to fire them up, helmets or not,” one finally says in frustration.

The Kart race goes off at 7:48, and it’s down to business. The scorers, who are normally in the tower with the directors, are on the track for this race for a better view of the numbers, which are smaller on the Karts, so the two have their radios at the ready. Their job, once the race starts, turns into watching the race, making sure everything is clean and no one tries anything against track regulations.

“[Gary] will watch the front of the field, and I’ll watch the back or vice versa, and they get strung out pretty good, so it helps having two eyes on it,” Stefi said. “We don’t have instant replay or anything to look at. That’s why we have officials around the track. They’re our eyes because we could both be looking down at [turns] three and four, and something happens in [turns] one and two, and hopefully one of our guys sees it and makes the call … We try to do our darnedest not to make a call unless we see it.”

The 20-lap kart race goes pretty quickly with no accidents, but it’s a close finish that has Fox muttering strategy at the guy in second place on the last lap, who –as if reading the director’s mind – takes the low line in turn four and pulls out the win.

Both directors know a thing or two about racing. Fox has been with the track for 33 years and has done just about every officiating job available. “I’ve done everything but tech,” he confirms. “Officiating, clean-up truck, in the pits, in the flag stand – I’ve been knocked out of the flag stand by a race car before. I’ve been chief steward and race director several times … In the past when I’ve left that position, it’s been two different times when I’ve had children, and I just didn’t have time to commit to it fully. It’s more than just showing up on Friday night’s to be race director.”

Fox got his start in the business around the age of 21 as part of the clean-up crew.

“I knew that I could never afford to race, so I got in with the guys on the clean-up truck and started working out there and here I am, 33 years later, still here.”

Southside Speedway Race Director Chris Stefi goes over schedule changes and racing notes during a drivers’ meeting. - Photo by Patrick Dobbs

Stefi, on the other hand, got his start at Southside as a racer. He started racing go-karts in middle school before selling his racing gear in 1986 to go to college. He got back into racing in ’95 when he bought a Late Model. He ran Late Model Stocks from 1995 through 2002 when the class was discontinued at the track.

Fox and Stefi knew each other from racing and from having season tickets to hockey games. Stefi said he approached Fox about jumping into the pace car. “He said, ‘No, but I could use you as an outside pit official.’ I said, ‘No,’ and then he talked me into it, so I started there,” Stefi recalled with a laugh.

They have both done pretty much everything from an official’s point of view or at least there’s “not too much out here I can’t think my way through,” Stefi says. Still, it is fairly uncommon to see co-race directors, but it works pretty well for Stefi and Fox, who have developed a rapport that their colleagues are trying to get them to take on the road.
“You and Gary should have a radio show,” one official jokes as they try to figure out who’s going to be on the public address system before the race. “Fox and the Fat Man.”
“I think it’s great!” Stefi says, “But no one would go for it. I think we should get T-shirts made up. Fox and the Fat Man.”

The two split duties almost seamlessly and bounce ideas and decisions off one another. Once a decision is made though, even if the other had a disagreement, the two present a unified front. This night, a disagreement comes on lap 25 in the Late Model race. One car gets spun out on the front stretch, and it’s a toss up to figure out if it was a brake check and the other guy got under him or if the guy in the back intentionally spun him out. Fox says it’s just racing. Stefi has his doubts. The two radio back and forth with pit officials and finally make the decision not to send the guy, who hit the car in front, to the back of the pack.

Meanwhile, reports of a storm slamming Goochland County and moving south have all officials with one eye to the sky and one on the races.

The flag goes green for the Late Models on lap 33 just as a lightning strike prompts a radio call from Clements asking what the directors are doing about the races.

“We’ve got an eye on it,” Fox assures her. “We’re trying to get the races in if we can.”

“Tell the Modifieds to get to their cars and hustle,” Stefi says to pit officials on another radio channel. “We’ve got weather on the way, so we want to get started as soon as possible.”
Weather may be on the way, but the two still have a race to call. On the track, they’re watching the two cars in the lead, who have been doing a little bumping in the corners but nothing serious – yet.

By 8:58 – lap 68 of 75 for the Late Models – the Modified class is dutifully lined up on pit road. The directors barely have time to watch Chris Dodson hold of Chris Hopkins for the Late Model win before they’re on their feet, telling the announcers to hurry the post-race cordialities so they can get the last race started. Stefi stays behind to talk with a Late Model driver, who is upset about the earlier call that sent him to the back but not the guy he felt he got the bump from, while Fox gets the Modifieds started.

“If this race is caution free, it’ll be over in 10, 15 minutes,” Fox says confidently but with a worried glance out the front window as lightning again lights the sky. The race features five cautions.

With the second 50-lap Street Stock feature left to go, everyone is scrambling and more than a little nervous, with more visible lightning hitting around the track and reports coming in of downpours and hail, but the final race goes smoothly and quickly. Track activity wraps up at 9:53, having escaped any appreciable storm.

“We got it in,” Stefi says. “The radar didn’t look good, but somehow we got lucky and everything split and went around us, and we got it in … We rarely call it for lightning. It’s really a judgment call, but for lightning we’ll make an announcement for fans, but we don’t normally call a race until it starts raining.”

After the race, Stefi and Fox stick around to speak with a car owner and then head off to the garage to oversee final inspections. Only one car is disqualified, and the directors have the benefit of some extra time and lot of details from their garage officials to make this one. The decision is made, like all the others, without regard to point standings or personal issues.

“I don’t keep up with the points, so I don’t worry about who’s the points leader,” Fox said. “Some people that I know at some race tracks, they obsess and worry about who my point leader is and I’ve got to protect my point leader. I don’t do that. I know some of these guys, and I’ve known some of them from being out here for 30-some-odd years real well, but when they get out there, they’re car numbers, and I try to look at them as just car numbers.”

With post-race inspections over, the two head back to the tower to finalize results and wait for the last of the haulers to leave the infield before calling it a night. Because of racing a storm, this night is early and the two are walking out around 11, but they’ve spent many nights at the track until 12:30 or 1 a.m. This particular week, they’ll also be back Monday night for a track staff meeting. They’ll also field calls throughout the week from drivers, owners and fans with questions, and certainly, they’ll make many more decisions before and during next week’s race, but for this pair of race directors, it’s just part of the job.