About

Thank you for visiting my store.  As a lifelong Nascar fan, I've seen how racing brings so many different people together, each with their own memories to share.   Here's how my fandom started.

The 1997 Daytona 500 was the first race I ever watched.  42 beautifully colored cars racing around that magnificent 2.5 mile oval broadcasted over antenna to the small tv screen in my neighbor's living room.  I didn't know what my favorite color was at the time, since I was 4, so I picked the rainbow car as my favorite to win... and he (Jeff Gordon) won!  From that point onward, I tried to watch and follow the sport as much as I could, and Jeff Gordon would be my favorite driver up until he retired.

I received my first two diecasts for easter that year (Terry Labonte and Mark Martin - both cars are almost not recognizable with how much I played and crashed them).  I continued collecting and playing cars as I got older, and would bring them out every Sunday when the races were on tv.  I had an oval, woven rug in front of the fireplace that I'd race on constantly, and my imagination saw the cars speeding around the track like it was Bristol. 

As I got older, I got into model railroading and decided that one day I'd build my own racetrack diorama.  After graduating college, I built my first revision of the diorama in 2015.  It was 6'x10' and had wood, plaster, and cork sheets as the banking and track surface.  It was an incredible pain to manage and very messy.  Revision 2 was much better, as I used insulation foam board for the base and track.  Revision 2 was all I needed, and the base section of that was completed in 2018.

I would take pictures of the track and play with the cars on it, but I didn't have a place to share them, nor did I want to create a social media account to share them.  My wife suggested I should, even if nobody saw it, I could have it as my own personal album as I improved the track detail.  That's when Behrend Speedway began on Instagram in 2019.  

I can't begin to describe how incredible the diecast/racing/diorama communities have been to me.  I've gotten to know a lot of great people as the account has grown, and so many have reached out with ideas/details to add to the track.  I've also been able to teach others as they build their tracks which has been very rewarding.  I've been on podcasts, had my track re-created in NR2003, had the track rendered by a well known artist, and have had several drivers/ teams engage with me.  These opportunities have not been taken for granted, but it just goes to show how wonderful this community has been.

Fast forward to 2022, I'm in the hospital with my wife as we welcomed our first child into our family.  During one of the nights, I was thinking about how I could create something for him to play on when he's older, and then I thought about that rug I had when I was little.  What if I create a rug/mat of my racetrack diorama?  When we got home and settled, I reached out to LueCreative, two prominent graphic designers in the racing community to see if they'd be interested in partnering with me to create this track.  And with that, the rest is history.  

Since then, I've released several more track designs and have some more on the way.  My goal is to provide race fans with a racetrack playmat where they can take their diecasts, use their imagination, and enjoy doing what I did as a young race fan 25 years ago.  I love seeing customers' reviews and truly appreciate my customers' support and feedback.  My hope is that each track mat sees many, many checkered flags!

If you have any questions, or would like to share your racing stories with me, please reach out here, or on my Instagram page.  Thank you!