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SUMERDUCK: Curtis family brought Fauquier dragway back from the dead

July 17, 2003 1:07 am

T WAS APRIL in the sleepy town of Sumerduck, which means crops were sprouting, cows were grazing and Roger Curtis had to get to work on his mother's farm.

He strolled into the State Bank of Remington and asked for a $700 loan for a bale of hay and a new rig.

But Curtis was of the leisurely lot, and on that day 40 years ago, he and the bank president got to talking.

"What do you know about drag racing?" the banker inquired.

Curtis, then 27, tried to halt a smile from creasing his face. He was a street racer, tried and true.

After nights making cellophane at the old Fredericksburg FMC plant, he used to take a three-carburetor '59 Chevy to a chunk of State Route 3 known as the Judyville Stretch.

The dragsters would mark off a mile for racing and send some idle onlookers to watch for police.

"A lot of people drank and did whatever," Curtis said. "But my thing was racing. Back then, you'd buy your car off the showroom floor, take the hubcaps off and go."

On his free days, Curtis drove down a winding country road to Sumerduck Dragway, where racing was legal.

The 5-year-old track was in the midst of some rough times: Its original owner went bankrupt, and the following buyer fared no better.

So the bank claimed the property, and the president was looking for a suitor.

He gave Curtis a 90-day note to make payments-- with no money down--and said if the track didn't make a profit during that span, Curtis would pay interest and the two parties would part ways.

Curtis looked past the weeds sprouting across the dragstrip. Looked past the fact that the -mile layout had been a speed bump for the previous two owners.

The key was convincing his wife, Mary Frances, to buy into the buy.

They'd married six years earlier after meeting at a dance. Mary Frances didn't know the first thing about drag racing, but she knew plenty about her husband.

"I went home and told her I'd just bought Sumerduck Dragway," Roger Curtis said. "She goes, 'Oh, Lord, it's been bankrupt twice, it won't make any money. What do you want that for?' I told her I believed it'd do all right."

Five weeks beyond his Jack-and-the-Beanstalk morning, Curtis had paid back the 90-day note in full. He then turned around and borrowed $50,000 more to improve the property.

Today, 40 years after grabbing hold of drag racing in Fauquier County, the Curtis family is showing no signs of letting go.

This season Curtis handed the IHRA strip down to his daughter Joy, 40, and her husband, Mike Anderson, 43.

The 67-year-old grandfather is still around whenever they're running at Sumerduck--which is now four times a week. The racers show up with hot rods and motorcycles, trucks and souped coupes.

"I had a feeling we could do something with this place," Curtis said. "It's been something special."

In 1963, there were no guardrails or lights or timing systems at the dragway.

It looked like a long slab of pavement that'd been dropped in the middle of a forest. You parked your ride on a nice patch of grass if you were lucky and just raced it if you weren't.

"There was nothing here but a big field and this little old track," Curtis said last week, sitting behind the wheel of his SUV and pointing to the area now occupied by staging lanes and pits. "It really needed working on."

For the first 10 years, Curtis operated the track without insurance. It's not that he didn't care, he just couldn't afford it.

The track was open only on Sundays, and Roger, Mary Frances and their three children--Scott, Pam and Joy--got to working.

"Every Sunday," Joy said, "we'd go to church and then go right to the track."

Before long, business started to boom, and Roger continued to race.

He was a Chrysler dealer in Culpeper and used one of his own rides to win a Supercar National event in 1967.

Mary Frances, who initially was skeptical of the whole deal, jumped right in and was a needed voice of reason.

When it came time to decide the winner's purse, Roger sometimes got caught wide-eyed by a big crowd and felt like opening his pockets.

Then Mary Frances reminded her husband of the bills to pay and checks to sign. Being a woman in this male-dominated sport, she had to feel comfortable putting her foot down.

"If someone gives me a hard time," she said, "I just laugh at them and go, 'Oh, quiet you stinky old booger.'"

The children helped by keeping time, running the snack bar, working the gate and doing whatever else they could.

"When you're so busy with it, a lot of times you don't get to see everything you should," Mary Frances said. "Some nights they'd ask me who won and we were so busy that I couldn't remember."

While she was working in the tech area one afternoon four years ago, Joy Curtis caught the eye of a drag-racing undertaker.

As a teenager, Mike Anderson used to take his 1962 Chevy to Elk Creek Dragway. But death pulled him away from the sport he loved, because in 1977 he entered the funeral business and gave up drag racing.

After 21 years, he decided to get back behind the wheel. So he took his 1988 Chevy Camaro up to Sumerduck to get an NHRA driver's license.

The two divorcees talked for half of a racing season before Mike called the track in the middle of a Big Bike Shootout and asked Joy on a date.

"I was really busy," Joy said. "So I wasn't very enthusiastic when I said yes."

The biggest hurdle arose when they decided to get married.

They wanted to do it on a weekend. In the summer. Away from the track.

"At first Roger wanted them to get married during the week," Mary Frances said. "Instead we closed for the first time in forever."

Mike and Joy communicate by walkie-talkie at the workplace. Mike is usually down on the track taking care of starts and stats and skirmishes while Joy mans the air-conditioned control room.

"She knows the rules of this sport way better than I ever will," Mike said. "When there's a problem we usually go to her."

Heads turn the other way and sentences trail off when it's brought up.

So it is with difficult memories.

On Nov. 10, 1996, a car blew a freeze plug and spilled antifreeze onto the track during a run. It slipped across the pavement, flipped twice and ultimately wound up crushing a 36-year-old woman who was protecting her son in the bleachers.

There was nothing the Curtises or the driver or the woman or anyone could have done. But there is no denying that drag racing can be a dangerous deal.

That's why the insurance bill at Sumerduck reaches $1,017 each week. After the accident, the insurance company told Roger Curtis to add a second guardrail. He has since added a third in several spots.

Anderson says metal scrapes metal often, but there hasn't been a major accident since the death seven years ago. The cars go through an exhausting inspection before they're allowed onto the track.

Sometimes the drivers of Sumerduck don't seem to get it. Like the time a man showed up using a blower that was attached to his car with bailing twine.

"That was definitely one of the better ones we've seen," Joy said.

The biggest concern is keeping the track clean. Debris or leaking oil can cause some major trouble. And Joy and Mike have to hope their drivers abide by the rules.

The rash of recent street-racing movies and television shows make true drag-racing fans like the Curtis family cringe.

Street racing, which teenagers are latching onto in waves, is more dangerous than drag racing and also illegal. Sometimes Mike Anderson gets calls from parents who are concerned their child is sneaking out to run a car at the strip.

"The first thing we do when they call is tell them we'll look into it," he said. "Then we ask them if they'd rather their son be racing on a street somewhere."

Roger Curtis still has a 1972 Plymouth Duster sitting in a shed near the dragstrip, but hasn't turned its key since last year.

"I just haven't had time to run it," Curtis said. "Truthfully, I haven't taken time. But I've got some time now."

That's because he finally stepped away from Sumerduck Dragway. Well, sort of.

Mary Frances still works the main gate nearly every day before running up the hill to help out at the concession stand.

"When you have those big crowds, when you see them bulging out and you can't get any more in the gate," Mary Frances said, "that's when things are really good. You're tired, but it's worth it."

Joy and Mike spent $185,000 on track improvements after taking over the strip this season.

A prospective buyer from Maryland had designs on turning the place into a motorcross track recently, but Roger chose to keep it in the family.

"My dad worked so hard to build this place," Joy said. "It would have been difficult to sell it out of the family."

It's a good thing he didn't, because Joy's 10-year-old daughter, Taylor, is another Curtis with racing in her blood. They say she's the best they've had working the timing shack.

Mike built a junior dragster for Taylor, and she expects to be racing it by summer's end.

As for Roger, he's still at the track whenever it's open. He's also getting to work on that white farmhouse with the blue shutters that sits up the road. After a 40-year detour, he's earned the chance.