Located just outside the racing capital of the world, BAM Weather has become closely ingrained into motorsports across Indiana and the United States, as fans and as forecasters.
By Jonathan Kipper
You can find some of the greatest racetracks and drivers around the Hoosier State and about 2 hours east of BAM’s Central Indiana office, you’ll find a track near the top of nearly everyone’s chart: Eldora Speedway.
The nickname of “The World’s Greatest Dirt Track” didn’t happen for nothing. From some of dirt track’s premier events, a who’s who of drivers to make it to victory lane, and one of racing’s icons, Tony Stewart, as the owner, no wonder Eldora is a bucket list destination for racing fans around the world!
To be one of the premier racetracks in the country, you must have a great team working for you. Jonathan Bateman, senior director for the track, fits that bill. Entering his 18th year working full time for the track, he’s 1 of 8 full time employees that work to keep the track in top shape year-round.
One of the many hats Jonathan wears stems from his love for the weather.
“I have always been someone who’s interested in the weather,” Bateman said. “I even helped to push management years ago to see about bringing BAM on as a weather service to use. [I] finally convinced them and it has been a great relationship ever since.”
The “official” partnership with Eldora Speedway started back in 2017, however the connection between Bateman and BAM Weather started when BAMWX was BAM Chase.
“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a meteorologist when I grew up… [I] always loved the weather,” Bateman explained. “I had followed a bunch of weather pages, even BAM Weather (then BAM Chase) on Facebook from the beginning when they started chasing storms.”
Eventually BAM Weather started offering subscription plans and after convincing ownership to get on board, Eldora has been partnered with BAM ever since.
“They were a little skeptical at first,” Bateman said. “We had a contact with the National Weather Service, and we would get some updates if they issued watches or hazardous weather outlooks. We thought for a bit that would suffice, but eventually got signed up with an account and it has been a valuable relationship ever since.”
Bateman originally had a personal subscription to see what BAM meteorologists had to say. Bateman showed the videos BAM puts out to clients to others within the leadership at Eldora, and seeing the accuracy of these forecasts pan out, they decided to pull the trigger.
Being able to utilize BAM Weather’s services plays a critical part in Eldora’s operations, especially when it comes to the product on the track and the safety of those attending the races.
On the biggest weekends, Eldora may host over 25,000 fans with around half of them taking advantage of the camping lots on the property. Keeping the fans updated and weather aware plays a big factor in everyone’s safety.
Along with the safety, Eldora Speedway needs to do the most with every racing night that they hold.
“With us only running 23 out of 366 days this year, it’s our only opportunity to make money,” Bateman said. “We have to maximize every opportunity that we get on those event nights, even if that means making a schedule adjustment to make sure we get the event in.”
Throughout the entire year, Eldora Speedway utilizes the Clarity Weather platform (powered by BAM Weather) to keep up with the weather 24/7 and make crucial decisions. From the ability to chat with a meteorologist about storms moving through to seeing what the humidity levels will be and determine how quickly the track will take to dry, being able to learn and get the insight from a meteorologist is a huge help in making those informed decisions.
One example that stuck out to Bateman was the King’s Royal Main Event in 2022, one of the premier sprint car races in the country.
“It was one of those weekends where we were dealing with weather all the time,” Bateman explained. “There were rain and storms supposed to move in Saturday evening, so we made the decision to move the start time of the show up.”
Including making the tough decisions to cut out some of the non-racing portions of the night, it was a race against Mother Nature to get the event in on Saturday prior to rain arriving.
“We pushed the show through and when we finished, it started to sprinkle and eventually rain when we pulled the winning car to Victory Lane,” Bateman recalled. “You could not have timed it out any better…had we not had those conversations throughout the day [with BAM], there would have been no way we would have got that event in.”
The relationship between BAM Weather and Eldora has evolved over the years, with BAM’s meteorologists now providing a pre-race forecast video live on the video board ahead of the biggest events to keep all the fans attending the races on the same page and informed!
Over the years, how Eldora has received the weather information and been able to communicate with BAM’s meteorologists has changed, but some aspects haven’t changed: the superb customer service, accuracy, and timeliness when it comes to getting the info needed.
“The new app (Clarity Weather) you have, I’m just amazed with how much info you can get in there,” Bateman stated. “It’s the first thing I show people when they ask about your services, and the chat feature, having that ability to talk 24/7 is a big selling point as well…I’ve sent a lot of messages on the chat, and I don’t think it’s ever taken more than a couple minutes to get an answer.”
When needing to make those critical decisions in the moment, having that piece of mind is always second to none. That’s something that Eldora Speedway has experienced for nearly 8 years and counting.
“There are obviously other services that do what you do, but you have a proven track record of forecasting,” Bateman said. “That makes the job easier if we must alter an event, we can say ‘After talking with our partners at BAM Weather…’. That gives us a real validity to it.”
To learn how you can save time and money, along with getting reassurance you’re making the best decision for your operations, you can sign up for Clarity through BAM Weather today!
To sign up today, visit Claritywx.com/sign-up
For more info on BAM and Clarity, visit: https://bamwx.com/book-a-demo/