The Ohio Valley Late Model Dirt Series announced it was cancelling all of its remaining events at Atomic Speedway after the track allegedly demanded the series remove its announcer.
In a post to Facebook the series stated, “We regret to announce the cancellation of the remaining events scheduled at Atomic Speedway for this season.”
As for the reason why, it claimed, “We were informed by Atomic Speedway that they would not host any remaining series events unless our announcer was removed. We respectfully disagree with that condition and have chosen to stand by our announcer’s right to work at other venues on the tour. Therefore, the remaining dates at Atomic Speedway have been canceled.”
While the track has canceled its remaining events at Atomic it is “currently in talks with several tracks to fill some of the lost dates.”
Robbie Devore, the announcer for the Ohio Valley Late Model Dirt Series also shared a video to his Facebook where he stated, “Our series took on the banks of Atomic Speedway and they had a fill-in announcer for them. Now, for those of you who don’t know, I have been trespassed from the facility. I used to be the announcer there at Atomic Speedway and I left for an opportunity to travel with this series full time and by taking that risk, taking that leap of faith I have been trespassed and banned from Atomic Speedway.”
He added, “Over the last couple days the owner of Atomic Speedway gave the series director an ultimatum: get rid of me or they won’t be able to come back to the racetrack themselves as a series. My self and the series director have talked it over and they are sticking by me. They are not getting rid of me as their announcer. So we, as the series, are pulling out of Atomic Speedway.”
“I want to say thank you to the series for having my back on this and I know it is a huge risk,” he stated.
The cancellation comes in the wake of the series competing at the track on July 12th. In a video post to Facebook, Atomic Speedway praised the series stating, “As always the Ohio Valley Late Model Series do a great job. Todd Frohnapfel is a wonderful dude. I appreciate everything Todd does and his drivers. It’s a great class and a great group of drivers. We can’t thank them enough.”
The Ohio Valley Late Model Dirt Series was expected to have its next race at Atomic on July 26th as well as dates on September 12th and 13th and finally on October 4th. It had previously competed at the track on April 19th, May 26th, June 21st, and the aforementioned July 12th.
In his video Devore indicated that there was one other date at Atomic on the schedule as well, which is likely the June 28th race that was postponed. He shared that the series has already worked with some other tracks “to fill the gaps” but is still looking for a “handful more.”
Atomic Speedway issued a statement on Facebook stating that it has removed all of the Ohio Valley Late Model Series races from its schedule “due to circumstances out of its control.” The track added, “With great respect for series Director Todd Frohnapple and all of its drivers it deeply saddens us to take this action and if anything changes in the future we hope to get the Ohio Valley Late Model Series back as soon as we can. Best of luck to the series and its drivers. Stay tuned of announcements on additional Steel Block Late Model races at Atomic.”
What do you make of the series pulling out of its events at Atomic?
**Editor’s Note: This article was updated with Atomic Speedway’s statement from Facebook.**
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