Richard and Vanessa Jordan’s love for Wiscasset Speedway has never wavered, though their confidence in the race track they’ve owned for the past seven years has at times, especially after their first official race day as new owners.

But hey, it was a race day, and that was an accomplishment in itself after the track went raceless for a few years.

That’s not the case now in 2019, which is the 50th anniversary of the track’s inaugural season in 1969.

Vanessa Jordan said she and her husband are “very happy to celebrate 50 years, and it’s quite a testament to (original owner) Wilford Cronk because the track itself hasn’t changed in 50 years.”

The track’s name has changed (the Jordans restored it back to “Wiscasset Speedway” upon purchasing the property). Ownership has changed. Drivers and fans have changed too.

Though, according to Vanessa Jordan, who took some time out to chat while preparing for this weekend’s 50th Birthday Celebration, the generations of regulars who have made coming to Wiscasset their “Saturday-night tradition” is part of what has made owning the track the most rewarding.

“I had no idea what that was until we got here and started talking to people, and it started growing, and they started coming back. And then the families that meet here every Saturday night is kind of fun,” Jordan said.

The people are who Jordan was most excited about seeing during the weekend-long celebration, whether it be some of the 13 inaugural members into the track’s new Hall of Fame — and their families — or many of the 45 total former track champions, including 19 who are still active drivers.

Some of those drivers are the men that a young Richard Jordan saw when he first started attending races at Wiscasset during the track’s first year. Eventually Jordan bought his own Late Model car, and the only place the Kingfield native wanted to bring it was Wiscasset.

“My first experience with the track came in 2007 when he decided he wanted to run a Late Model before he got too old to do so,” Vanessa Jordan said. “So that’s what brought us here.”

That dream was short-lived, with the track closing after the 2010 season. Jordan said her and her husband were “disappointed, like everyone else.

“But we had really no desire to go anyplace else, so we didn’t,” she said. We kind of garaged the car for a little while, and then we actually leased it out to a young man who ran it. … We got the car back and had no idea what we were going to do with it. Lo and behold we found ourselves a little race track. Go figure.”

The Jordans’ first foray into track ownership was a go-kart track in their hometown of Kingfield. When Wiscasset went up for auction in 2012 the Jordans joined in, with Vanessa saying they “knew where we were going to stop, and Rich decided to go one more time and lo and behold we wound up with it.”

The Jordans’ first race day to start the 2013 season didn’t go so well, according to Vanessa, with only 100 people showing up to the April event, many wearing “snowmobile suits.”

“I thought ‘Oh my word, I don’t know if this is going to work.’ But it improved after that. Thank goodness,” Jordan said.

Now, though, the Jordans are having a “marvelous time,” according to Vanessa.

“The crowds are good, the cars are great,” she said. “And this, this is like our recreation, this is our camp. This is where we come every weekend.”

Vanessa, in fact, spends more days than not at or near the track during the summer, while Richard splits time between Wiscasset and the family business (Jordan Lumber Co.) in Kingfield. The two-hour-or-so drive never stopped the Jordans from making Wiscasset their second home, though Vanessa said she has chosen to spend more time at the track because she can get more work done “accomplishing something” with those two hours saved.

Now that the track has made it to its 50th anniversary, it’s time to look toward the next 50 years.

Or maybe not that far forward.

“One year at a time. That’s where we go,” Vanessa Jordan said. “I have no idea. I hope it’s still here. But one year at a time, that’s all. We’re very simple, short-goal oriented.”

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