SELINSGROVE -- If you've gone to Selinsgrove Speedway with any kind of regularity at any time in the last 20 or 30 years, you have seen Steve Paige there. You probably have no idea who he is, but you've seen him.

The answer is simple. He's the guy who gets the track ready to race on.

At 48, Paige has been working at and prepping the track, in one way or another, for more than two decades. But his is a story of the unknown.

What you know is you show up for racing on Saturday night and you always have an opinion on what you see.

"It's too hard or it's too dry. It's too rough or it's too dusty," is what you probably say.

And to that, Paige says, "I d tell them to come down and help me some Saturday and show me what to do."

You see, getting the track to the point where it's ready to go when you plop down in your seat for a night of entertainment is far from an easy or quick job.

Paige spends anywhere from 25 to 40 hours a week getting the track ready to go, depending on the elements and whether there is one or two nights of racing to be done during the weekend. It has to be disced and graded and watered and manicured and packed in, all with a little help from some friends.

And if it's the middle of summer, breezy, sunny and 90 degrees, "You water and you water and you water and you just can't get enough water on it," Paige says.

During hot, dry periods, Paige and crew might put up to 60,000 gallons of water onto the surface each week. That equates to about 17 truckloads. In cooler, damper periods, you're looking at about 15,000 gallons.

It is a labor of love, says Paige.

"It's my hobby. Some guys fish, some guys hunt. It's my hobby, I guess," he says.

But it goes deeper than that.

A lifelong Snyder County resident, Paige first saw the racetrack when his aunt and uncle took him there at age 5.

"Mitch Smith was my favorite driver," Paige remembers, "him and Ray Tilley and Bobbie Adamson, they were the big guys back then."