Sweet home Pocono

LONG POND, Pa. – Printed on the back of Nick Igdalsky's business card is a message Bill France Sr. wrote to Igdalsky's grandfather, Joseph Mattioli, more than three decades ago.

"On the plains of hesitation lie the bleached bones of millions – who when within the grasp of victory sat and waited, and waiting died."

Back in 1975, Dr. Mattioli was having financial troubles at his racetrack in northeast Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. Mattioli desperately wanted to sell the track, but in a meeting in New York City, France Sr. took out his own business card and on the back of it scribbled the message that ultimately helped convince Mattioli to stay the course.

It was a seminal moment for the futures of both Mattioli and NASCAR. For had he decided to sell then, Mattioli wouldn't be in the position he's in today, owner of Pocono Raceway, and NASCAR, still stuck mostly in the Southeast, could have lost its closest ally to the largest market in the country, New York City.

Now, 33 years later, Mattioli stands alone. Sure, there is one other privately owned venue on NASCAR's 22-track circuit, but Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a corporation in and of itself, which leaves Pocono Raceway as the only mom and pop shop left.

For years, Pocono Raceway, site of Sunday's Pocono 500, has been the subject of rumors, namely will Doc Mattioli sell; and when, not if, will NASCAR take a race away from the aging, 2.5-mile tri-oval?

Speculation about Pocono's future heated up in recent weeks when track mogul Bruton Smith purchased Kentucky Speedway and immediately declared he'd have a Sprint Cup date there in 2009. With no Cup dates currently available, where would Smith get one? All eyes immediately focused on Pocono and its two dates.

There are two problems with these rumors. First off, the track isn't for sale.

"If Bruton walked in with a big wheelbarrow with a billion dollars in it, I'd tell him to go (expletive) himself," the 83-year-old Mattioli said Friday. "I started out in 1952 with $48 in my account. Today I'm worth about $500 to $600 million. … How successful do I have to be?"

And even if the track were for sale and Smith were to buy it, how would he convince his shareholders that moving an event that's two hours from the nation's No. 1 and No. 4 markets (New York City and Philadelphia) to rural Cincinnati makes good business sense?

To understand why the track isn't for sale, you have to know Doc Mattioli. To understand why it would be foolish to move a date from Pocono, you have to look at things from a marketing perspective.

Pursuit of happiness

Doc Mattioli could have retired 48 years ago. As a dentist in Philadelphia, he'd made plenty of money and invested it well enough to make him a millionaire which, in those days, would have lasted him a lifetime.

But for him, it wasn't (and still isn't) about money. It was about happiness, and he's happiest when he's building things.

It's a realization he came to on Oct. 3, 1960, one of the most important days of his life.

He was in his office late at night, having been pulled away from a Lions Club dinner to answer an emergency call from a patient who needed his wisdom teeth removed. Sitting at his desk following the procedure, Mattioli opened his box of Parliaments, lit a cigarette and felt a sharp pain in his chest.

"I thought I was having a heart attack," he recalls, retelling a story he's told innumerable times, "and I started crying."

He was 35 years old, 30 pounds overweight, smoking two packs a day, working 60 hours a week and miserable.

He realized at that moment that he'd had enough. He decided to stop taking patients, swore he'd quit smoking and vowed to himself that he'd never do anything again unless it made him happy.

The first thing he did, after snapping a couple hundred cigarettes in half, was build a golf course, which he played once, then quit the game forever. Then he learned how to fly, how to ski, how to sail a boat.

He built two ski areas in the Pocono Mountains and a housing development.

He happened upon racing only by chance. He'd flown up to the Poconos with his kids one afternoon when he met a man, Leroy Dengler, who was looking for an investor to build a race track on a spinach farm.

Mattioli knew nothing about racing, but he figured if the track idea didn't work out at least he'd have a good piece of land to develop, so he did the deal.

After fielding ideas on what type of track to build from both France Sr. and Tony Hulman, who owned Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Mattioli settled on a hybrid between Daytona International Speedway and Indianapolis – a semi-flat, 2.5-mile tri-oval.

The track opened in 1971, hosting an open-wheel event that featured Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt and Al and Bobby Unser. NASCAR arrived in 1974 when Richard Petty won the Purolator 500.

"That gave us a 500-mile race in the northeast," the late Bill France Jr., who took over for his father in 1972, said a few years ago. "We've had a lot of steps in building this sport, and this was one of the many steps that we took."

If the loyalty between Mattioli and the France family was strengthened in '75 when Mattioli agreed not to sell, it was sealed in 1982 when France Jr. came calling in need of a favor. When Ontario Motor Speedway and Texas World Speedway both went bankrupt, NASCAR was in need of a venue to take up those races. France Jr. asked Mattioli if he would host a second Cup race at Pocono.

At the time, Mattioli was busy with an open-wheel date in June and his one Cup race in July and didn't want a second Cup date. He told him no. Then, France Jr. called again.

"Doc, we need a race," he said.

Mattioli agreed, and since 1983 Pocono has hosted two Cup races.

"What people don't understand is, when I got the second date, I didn't want it," said Mattioli, who over the years has sat quietly as drivers and media members have questioned why Pocono still has two dates. "I'm not going to go out and refute what people say. It's a free world. They can say what they want. But I know the truth."

Location, location, location

Just about every year Pocono Raceway takes a beating, and this year is no different. Drivers like Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. question the track's surface, while media members scoff at the facility itself.

“In today’s world, with all the modern changes that have been made to tracks and progressive banking and just the shape of the track, it’s tough to really put on a good race here," Jimmie Johnson said Friday. “We sound awfully harsh in saying these things, but we’re just trying to be honest. We all appreciate and respect the Mattiolis and all that they’ve done. It’s not a personal dig on them. But there is no denying that this is an old, old facility.”

Johnson is right. The racing at Pocono isn't the best.

But while taking a date from Pocono seems like the logical solution for some, from a marketing standpoint to do so makes absolutely no sense, says Chris Lencheski, president of SKI and Co., a worldwide sports marketing and entertainment firm.

"That wouldn't be my first recommendation," Lencheski said. "You have 80 percent of the country's population within a two-hour flight (of Pocono), 60 percent within a two hour drive.

"This is a tremendous place to attract the curious fan &ndash not just the diehard fan – who says, 'I'm interested in NASCAR, where do I go?' "

For this reason, Lencheski believes Pocono is the most important track on NASCAR's circuit and says pulling a race would be a difficult sell, no matter who's doing it.

"Would you take the Jets out of New York or the Eagles out of Philadelphia?" Lencheski wondered, questioning the validity to the idea that if Smith were to buy Pocono he'd move one of its races to Kentucky Speedway. "There's no gain to moving a race from Pocono to the No. 17 market in the country."

Home, sweet, home

The Mattiolis aren't going anywhere.

Besides the fact that Mattioli has put the track in a trust for his seven grandkids, which he says prohibits anyone from selling the track until he, his wife and his three kids have all died, there’s this: Pocono is home.

Doc and his wife Rose live across the street from Turn 3. Two of their children live right behind them. He's built a mausoleum next door where he and his family will lay to rest. And he's already got several of his grandkids on his Pocono payroll.

Igdalsky and his brother, Brandon, 32, now the track's president, are primed to take the reins from their grandfather and say they have no plans on giving them up when he's gone.

They've heard the criticism of the track, have their own ideas on where the track needs to go, including adding luxury suites, and promise big things in the future.

"Some people are raised on a farm and that's the only thing they know," said Nick Igdalsky, 30, who was recently named senior vice president of the track. "It's the same with us. We were raised on a racetrack."