OKTAHA — Lest anyone didn’t believe it, Monday’s star-studded event hammered the point home.

Oh sure, having NASCAR drivers Kenny Wallace and Ken Schrader not only in attendance but behind a pair of Super Modified wheels pumped some NASCAR fandom into some of the record crowd. And the chance to race against them brought drivers from points as far as central Texas to get a shot at making them eat dust.

But the extra balloons were a welcome attraction for kids like Jacob and Raegan Berry of Muskogee. The preschool children of Michael and Shawnda Berry also appreciated the clowns.

“They get naps on race nights,” Shawnda said.

The Berrys have been spot regulars since the track opened, but they’ve seen the difference this year.

“There’s more concessions, more things between races that are for kids,” she said. “Racing is racing, and we’ve enjoyed it every year. But you can tell the promotional effort.”

Bill Hatfield, 61, of Muskogee sat in his customary front row seat atop his scooter that gets him around since the Vietnam veteran had to have a leg amputated due to an infection he said resulted from his time of service.

“These owners care about people,” he said. “What I like is that you always see them congregating around the fans in the stands, like waiters, asking how things are. They’re always asking me how they can help me.”

Danny Womack couldn’t do that alone. He’s managed to race and manage race operations — a real feat considering all the possible competition issues of racing against your clients. What makes this work so well is that his co-owner, Lynn Skinner, can let him do that and run the marketing end of the show from his perch atop the grandstands.

Skinner’s handled marketing in the auto auction business for years. But auto auction marketing isn’t entertainment marketing.

“Everything up here has to be choreographed to go off just right, from one activity to the next,” he said. “And you have to be fan-friendly.”

“We’ve got more crowd participation than we’ve had,” track announcer Jeff Dame added. “Dance contests at intermission are new. And we’re using more music, more theme music, at different periods of the night.”

Even Schrader, who along with Wallace own dirt tracks, says in the face of struggling track success at that level that marketing is the key.

“You’ve got to look at this as an entertainment business, not a racing business,” Schrader said.

While plenty of credit is due Skinner and Womack for the surge in attendance — including a record estimated crowd of 6,500 — and car count, one thing should be said about the former ownership of Gary Clay. Even if certain drivers drifted from the track due to dissatisfaction with operations and Clay, it was his vision and pockets that brought this operation to fruition.