Keith Hall describes himself as "an old farm boy from Idaho who don't believe in vacations or in taking a day off."
There seems to be a general agreement about this.
"He's a tough SOB who gets things done," said Windy McDonald, a publicist/broadcaster who worked at Phoenix's Manzanita Speedway for almost 40 years. "Doesn't mean I always liked him a whole bunch. But for about 20 years, Keith Hall was the best racetrack promoter in the United States. He's gotta be 74, 75 now. Hope he's got some energy left.''
On Wednesday afternoon at USA Race Park, a dirt track just down the street from the Los Reales Landfill, 73-year-old Keith Hall was shuffling through the day's mail — and he didn't like it.
Gas bill. Phone bill. Electric bill. He stopped and tossed a bundle of envelopes into a plastic container and vented.
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"Can you tell me why we have to send our electric bill to an office in Prescott?'' he asked. "I've been down here three months, working 18 hours a day, getting on top of everything. But I can't figure out why people down here pay their electric bills in Prescott.''
For the first time in almost 50 years, Keith Hall is "down here," full time, as general manager of USA Race Park. His intention is to resuscitate auto racing in Tucson, which in recent years has faded until it is almost irrelevant.
His first visit to Tucson came before Interstate 10 was built. Hall drove down Highway 89 from Phoenix to collect on a debt from his new automobile auction business.
"The guy bounced some drafts — didn't pay his bills — and he owed me about $2,500," Hall remembers. "He told me he didn't have any money but there was a sprint car in the garage I could have as payment."
Hall's memorable line: "What's a sprint car?"
A few weeks later, Hall was racing that sprint car at Manzanita Speedway. He became so taken with auto racing that he bought Manzanita in 1964.
Under Hall's promotional genius and willingness to take a chance, the southwest Phoenix track soon became one of America's leading stock car racing venues, a place with a reputation so strong it played host to such notables as Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt and Al Unser.
But that was yesterday. The issue/gamble is whether Hall can regularly put several thousand fans in the seats at USA Race Park; capacity is about 5,600. Since opening his Tucson facility three months ago, Hall's top crowd has been about 1,200.
"I've heard nothing but good things about Keith and the track,'' said Tucsonan Bob Huebner, one of Arizona's leading stock car drivers from 1965 to 1995 and former owner of a Tucson machine shop. "People will like what Keith does and he'll get it right. He'll get people interested; that's the way he works.''
Hall suggests he works 18 hour days, and how can you not believe him? He owns a cutting horse ranch in Weatherford, Texas, a sport/business in which he is a former national champion. He is a developer who builds homes in the White Mountains, and now he's got ambitious plans for Tucson's auto racing industry.
"I don't plan on slowing down," he said. "I started out working as a boy on our farm near Pocatello, Idaho, and it just got in my blood. I don't stop. I don't retire."
Initially, Hall planned a career as a teacher and coach. He was a three-sport athlete at Southern Mississippi, earning a letter on the USM basketball team in 1954-55. Upon graduation, he moved to Phoenix to get his graduate degree in secondary education. To support himself, he worked at Safeway doing everything from stocking shelves to mopping floors.
That career went off path when, to make a few extra dollars, he bought and sold a few old cars around campus. His career at Safeway ended and so did his plans to be a coach. He went from the car-selling business to the car-racing business.
And here he is today, starting all over again in Tucson.
"At Manzanita, it became tough for Keith to battle against the entertainment dollar of Phoenix," said McDonald. "It seemed like every weekend we'd go against the Diamondbacks or the Suns or a big-name concert — all sorts of things. I'll say this for Keith: he was inducted into the Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2004, and it was well deserved. It wasn't a longevity award."
Hall launched his reputation when he started the Western World sprint car championships 40 years ago. It became part of the Triple Crown of sprint car racing and, he says, "put us on the map."
He insists his blueprint for USA Race Park is no less aggressive.
"I see a bunch of big championship races here, some big things," he said. "The potential here for stock cars is great. I'm going to get it done."
