My relatives used to tell me, before I was born, that it wasn’t unusual for members of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team to be seen in the local establishments, perhaps the grocery or the drugstore. These players were far from millionaires and often conducted their business in an everyday manner — just like the fans who watched them play.

The Dodgers, of course, would move to L.A. and today the millionaire players have more in common with the movie stars up the road than with the everyday fan.

Fast forward some 15 or 20 years and I recall as a youngster growing up on Long Island hearing Saturday night “thunder” at three local car race tracks, Freeport, Riverhead and Islip. Just one of those racetracks, Riverhead, still exists, the other two shut down years ago.

Fast forward again to last fall. It is a Saturday night and my 11-year-old son Jamie and I were in Clarksville’s Greentree Mall. As we prepared to pay for an item in a department store, I looked at my watch and said, “We’d better hurry if we are going to get to the races.”

The woman behind the counter looked up and said, “Are you going to Sportsdrome?”

And then a smile came over her face, as she recalled, “My father used to take me there when I was a little girl. I loved it. Now I take my grandkids.”

Now how do these three things relate?

Allow my friend, ESPN broadcaster and TV pit reporter Jack Arute to tell you.

“The whole sports landscape is different now,” Arute says. “The explosion of NASCAR on a national scale, plus the accessibility of sports 24/7 on TV, has made semi-pro baseball disappear, semi-pro basketball vanish and often caused the closing of the local racetracks. There is just too much competition for the sports fan’s time and attention.

“But,” Arute continues, “Tony Kornheiser (of ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption”) told me a while ago, he thinks car racing has replaced baseball as a way for families to link generation to generation.

“Like the family that might talk about Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays, but would also pay attention to the local teams and athletes who were playing, now they talk about Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt Jr. and still take in the local racing at their track. It all connects.”

I didn’t grow up a “gearhead.” However, when the family moved to North Carolina — plus our time living in Maryland — I began to follow the sport when my oldest son Nicholas began collecting the cars. We discussed the national drivers (Mark Martin was his favorite), but he wanted to see some racing in person. We went to some local tracks in Virginia and Maryland and a tradition was born.

When we moved here, we went to Louisville Motor Speedway, now closed of course, and the Sportsdrome, where we enjoy attending races a number of times each season.

This will be our 10th year attending races. It is part of our calendar that tells us spring is here and while 10 years isn’t that long. It qualifies as a tradition in our house and one we share with so many families in this area.

Like the pretty girl in high school who didn’t know she was a looker, I am not sure the people around here realize the little gem they have in the Sportsdrome. It has been around since 1947 and, as Arute points out, in today’s market to continue in that business for that long is an achievement indeed.

He should know. His family owns Stafford Speedway in Connecticut and it was his late father’s pride and joy.

“Dad believed two things,” Arute said. “You have to make it fun — it is entertainment after all — and you have to provide good racing. He used to like to say, ‘If you don’t care about the racing, it’s like owning a beautiful store with junk on the shelves. You’ll go broke in no time.’”

So how do his track and local tracks like Sportsdrome, stay in business?

“You have to embrace your tradition. But you have to adapt, too,” Arute said. “Years ago you used to be able to just worry about what was in front of the grandstand. Now you have to care about what is in front of it, in back of it, in the restrooms, the parking lots, the media — every place you can care, you have to care.”

It appears the locals do pretty well in that regard. Front and center on the Sportsdrome Web site is the line “Join a Kentuckiana Racing Tradition.”

But they are adapting to new technology too. Their TV show is available “On Demand” on Insight Cable.

They are reaching out to new fans and wannabe racers too, with nine “Wednesday Wars” which include front-wheel drive (FWD) cars, which are for true novices to find an accessible way to experience the fun of actually racing.

As Arute says, “It’s better than paying a fortune to sit in the passenger seat at one of those ‘racing experiences.’”

Plus it’s free parking, an affordable ticket price and concessions that don’t require a second mortgage.

And, as Jack Arute Sr. would be sure to point out — the racing is very entertaining. The program moves along like a well-oiled machine and afterwards, the winning driver is likely to come sit in the stands with his family, right next to you.

Just like the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Good luck to all the folks involved at Sportsdrome. Here’s to 47 more successful years.

Bob Valvano lives in Sellersburg and can be reached via e-mail at bobvshow@yahoo.com. He is a former college basketball coach and current radio show host on ESPN Radio.