Jack Arute

Car Owner, Track Owner, Promoter
CLASS OF 2001

Although referred to by the racing community as Jack Arute “Senior”, Jack Arute is actually a junior, and was involved in his family’s road construction company when Bill Slater approached him with a proposal to purchase the Stafford Speedway, which was scheduled to close permanently on July 11, 1969. Not only did Arute reopen the track on that date, but his driver Ed Flemke took down the feature win in a car Arute co-owned with Ray & Rich Garuti.

Arute quickly set about making changes at the facility, including the addition of new grandstands and safety aprons on the track’s corners and planted trees outside the track’s perimeter fence. He also increased purses.

But probably most importantly, Arute began lobbying NASCAR for rules changes. “NASCAR had become disenchanted with the modifieds”, Jack remembers. While Arute had been a long-time supporter of the pre-war coupe bodied modifieds, he saw the writing on the wall when Bob Judkins debuted the pinto-bodied 2x, with driver Gene Bergin. When NASCAR refused to approve the new body style, Arute had a series of conversations with Bill France, finally traveling down to Daytona Beach to get his point across.

By the mid 1970s, Arute saw the Modified division running into trouble. Costs were spiraling upward, and car counts were shrinking. Jack saw a need for a more affordable “entry level” form of modified. Seeing the pinto, vega, and gremlin bodied modifieds parked in garages and barns, unable to compete against the high powered, high dollar NASCAR modifieds, Arute started a new series at Stafford, known as the SK modifieds that debuted in 1982. As the modifieds became more of a touring series in the area, the SK modifieds became the headlining division in 1987.

Jack Arute’s objectives were to keep the modifieds as a viable division, and to take auto racing at the Stafford Motor Speedway to a new level. Drivers like Pete Hamilton, Ron Bouchard, Jimmy Spencer, the Bodine brothers, had made Stafford their home. NEAR Hall of Famers Richie Evans, Bugs Stevens, Fred DeSarro, and Ed Flemke were regular weekly competitors at the ½ mile speedway.

Arute was presented the Frank Maratta Award for outstanding contribution to auto racing in 1997. He passed away on April 3, 2006 at the age of 78. The foundation of success that Arute built for Stafford Speedway continued primarily under the operation of his son Mark and his wife Lisa, eventually to his grandsons operating the facility. It remains one of the most successful short tracks in the country.