Harvey Wallbanger & Gillette Race Track

Energy Downs

You will find Energy Downs at the Cam-Plex facility in Gillette, Wyoming. It’s your typical Western Fair Track, it features an open air grandstand that seats 3,000 people. The track appears to be a five eights mile dirt oval. One thing that seems to be missing is the finish line.

Harvey, by a snout

Thanks to instant racing, pari mutual racing returned to Energy Downs in 2015, after a nineteen year hiatus. I have no idea what name the track went by back then. Racing came back for three days in 2015 and has been upped to six days in 2016. If you want to try instant racing or simulcasting, you have to head to the Sundance Lounge.

In 1985, Harvey Wallbanger broke his maiden at Energy Downs, he won a 110yd match race against a quarter horse by two and a half lengths. From there he would go on to win 79 of 93 races in the United States, Canada and Mexico against quarter horses, thoroughbreds and standardbreds. Not to shabby for a one ton Bison!

The Harvey Wallbanger cocktail, apparently no relation, was created in 1969 as a marketing campaign by McKesson Imports Company, importer of Galliano, as a means of driving sales of Galliano. The campaign was headed by George Bednar, marketing director of McKesson, and a cartoon character was commissioned from graphic artist William J. “Bill” Young in Lima, New York,^[1][2] with the tagline that Bednar claimed to have penned: “Harvey Wallbanger is the name. And I can be made!”^[3][4][5] The Harvey Wallbanger character was a surfer, appearing in various ads during the campaign, and was mentioned in print as early as 1969,^[3] continuing into the 1970s.^[6][7] The recipe displayed in the ads is:^[1] “6 oz. O.J., 1 oz. vodka, stir with ice, splash in ½ oz. Galliano”.