Efforts to name the Calistoga Speedway in honor of the late Louis Vermeil are going in the same direction as the sprint cars that he is credited with introducing to the track: round and round.

Scott LeStrange, a Calistoga resident who has been among those driving the effort to honor Vermeil since January, believes the majority of Calistogans favor the name change.

The idea is not new. In fact, LeStrange said that he proposed the name change after talking to Mike Kenney, until recently the manager of the Napa County Fair Association. Kenney told LeStrange that the Napa County Fair Association Board of Directors was in favor of the idea 20 years ago. LeStrange wanted an announcement the track was being named in Vermeil’s honor to be made during the Louis Vermeil Classic, which happens during the Labor  Day weekend.

But LeStrange learned Tuesday that the board decided against the proposal.

This was after Patty Sereni, the interim general manager of the Napa County Fair, said, “The board decided they’re not going to rename the track — they want to keep it as the Calistoga Speedway. (But) They’re open to putting a plaque out there for Mr. Vermeil.”

The decision, she added, was made during the board’s May meeting with Mike Benson, a Calistoga race car driver, in attendance and said that Benson had indicated that he represented LeStrange.

LeStrange acknowledged he had spoken with Benson before the May meeting, but not since.

“That’s news to me — they never told me,” LeStrange said when apprised of the fair board verdict allegedly rendered two months ago.

For Benson’s part, he said he never informed LeStrange of the board’s rejection because he didn’t know it had been made. “They never really said no,” he said, recalling the May board meeting.

LeStrange, a retired former assistant district attorney, said he would go along with tabling the matter. “Let’s make this year’s (Vermeil Classic) a success and worry about the track (name) later,” he said.

However, he is convinced that people in Calistoga won’t take no for a permanent answer.

“The people here are very upset; I think they want the track named after Mr. Vermeil,” LeStrange said. “This is not going to go away.”

He added that he will join drivers and promoters after Labor Day “to discuss what we’re going to do — (to determine) what’s our next step.”

There is a high regard for the Vermeil family in Calistoga. People remember “Louie” Vermeil as a well-respected citizen and auto mechanic who supported sprint-car racing, befriended high school students and fixed their jalopies, sometimes giving them the parts needed. During her lifetime, Louie’s wife Alice reportedly cooked for and fed hundreds of people.

The pair’s exemplary work ethic was passed on to three sons — Dick, Stan and Al — and daughter, Laura, who lives in Middletown.

Dick Vermeil, who played on the same football team as the late Bill Walsh at San Jose State, coached two different NFL teams to Super Bowls and lives in Pennsylvania. Al was a conditioning coach for professional teams, including the 49ers in the halcyon days under Walsh, who lives in Chicago; and Stan is a master mechanic, who lives in Penn Valley.

“I wanted to name the track after Mr. Vermeil because without him there wouldn’t be a fair, there wouldn’t be a track and there wouldn’t be a grandstand there,” LeStrange said, describing his proposal.

 “What we wanted to do is have a dinner and invite the family, which was interested in the project,” he added. “I talked to maybe 100 people in town. Once the family was on board, I went to the Sharpsteen Museum board and then I contacted the fair board.

“The first guy I talked to was fair manager Kenney. At first he was very cold, but then he said, ‘Gee, good idea.’ Things were looking real good ... I thought slam dunk.”

Then, with several race car drivers present, he went before the fair board and told them, “We’re having a race in Louie Vermeil’s honor over Labor Day, the Vermeils are going to be here. Wouldn’t it be a great time to name the track after their father?’”

After delivering his proposal, he said he left the fair board meeting, “thinking it would happen.”   

Instead, like a race car, the proposal hit the wall.