Go For It Raceway ransacked, burglarized

ANTIGO — The Langlade County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a burglary that occurred Monday night at the Go For It Raceway clubhouse on the southern outskirts of Antigo.

The perpetrators shattered a sliding glass door and bent back a sliding garage door of the building to enter, and eventually made off with six walkie talkies, five fire extinguishers, a computer monitor, a TV, and a large trophy honoring a beloved racer that frequently competed at Go For It and on other local racing circuits before passing away several years ago.

“It was like a bomb went off,” said Go For It owner Joe Acker of what he saw in the clubhouse when he walked inside Tuesday morning. “They had the grill tipped over, a popcorn machine. They ransacked it.”

While the identities of the perpetrators currently remain unknown, Acker said that Tuesday morning Sheriff’s Officers engaged in extensive fingerprint collection, the results of which will likely come back soon.

“Material wise, I’m only out that probably $800 to $1,000, but they kicked in a $2,000 sliding glass door to do it,” Acker said. “I personally would rather just have my stuff back, especially the trophy.”

The trophy was made in honor of racer Dustin White, who died tragically in 2019 at age 34.

“I can fix things that are broken on my end — but that trophy’s not replaceable,” Acker said. “It has zero value to most people, and it’s priceless to the next. I can buy a new fire extinguisher. I can buy a new door. You just can’t replace that kind of stuff. I personally am thinking about canceling racing until that trophy’s returned.”

Go For It Technical Advisor Curt Opper, a close family friend of the Whites, raced four wheelers with Dustin and others in his family for years. Opper originally proposed establishing the trophy and the Dustin White Memorial Race, an annual four wheeler race typically held each September since White’s passing that has been known to draw upwards of a thousand people.

“It was more or less just a gesture, and we just thought it would help his family and his kids after losing their father,” Opper said. “I thought it would be nice to do this memorial race stuff in honor of him and the family and it took off and just got big. It’s a small town track but it draws a lot of people there and everybody there is from the community. Everybody there knows everybody’s child. Everybody knows who everybody is, and I think that’s what makes it strong.

“I never would have imagined that somebody would have wanted a memorial cup trophy that meant something to the family because of the passing of a young man. I’m pretty upset by it because it meant a lot to a lot of us drivers that raced with him. I don’t care who it is or even if they returned it. I just thought, why would you steal a memorial cup trophy? Why would you steal a trophy that is a memorial to somebody’s death? It just makes no sense to me at all.”

Acker said that if the culprits would have chosen almost any other night, they likely would have been identified.

“I was up there on Saturday this weekend and the battery in the camera was down to eight percent and I forgot the charger at home, so I brought the camera home to charge it,” Acker said. “Otherwise there’s always a camera there. It was there all winter long — since the last race, the camera has never left that place.”

A local resident that wished to remain anonymous said she was the passenger in a vehicle turning off the highway between 6 to 7 p.m. Monday night when she saw a utility terrain vehicle tearing around the track.

“It was right before it rained Monday night. We were heading over to my daughter’s. I thought it was kind of weird that somebody was riding around the track because I know that the town frowns upon anybody being on there outside of the races,” she said. “Somebody was riding around the track with either a camo or a dark green Polaris Ranger.”

Acker said the track also sustained substantial damage from the UTV’s long joyride.

“They did probably 20 or maybe even 30-plus laps. With the track not being groomed and rolled in, it tears everything up,” he said.

Opper said he believes racing at Go For It really may be canceled if the responsible parties do not return the trophy.

“We know it’s somebody local that has to be around the area. Back when Greg Krueger owned it, somebody had taken some canopies and tents and stuff like that from the track, and Greg put a post out at one time that he was going to cancel racing unless those canopies showed back up, and the following morning, they were there. Somebody returned them,” Opper said. “Somebody’s going to want to race. Somebody’s going to squeal somewhere. So it’s going to come out. People want to race, and if they want to race, somebody’s going to have to do some talking.”