Dallas Jones has been racing most of his life. When he bought Beech Bend raceway more than 25 years ago, he had plenty of experience behind the wheel.

“I have been a racer of some sort as far back as I can remember,” said Jones, owner of Beech Bend amusement park and raceway. “I had my own drag car when I was 16 years old. So, I’ve been in motor sports someway, somehow all of my life.”

Now, Jones has transformed Beech Bend into a full-scale amusement park, raceway and campground. While he had to delay the opening of a water park addition due to flood damage, Beech Bend continues to thrive.

The 360-acre park attracts about 900,000 people annually – 500,000 of those come for racing events. Jones has brought in national, big-time races that attract people from across the country. The park pumps about $42 million a year into the local economy through tourism spending.

He’s built the Kentucky Rumbler – a record-breaking wooden roller coaster – and he’s expanding the water park, dropping more than $5 million to add a wave pool, a lazy river and a play structure with seven slides and dump buckets. The park already has a pool, five slides and a small play structure.

Jones has rebuilt the park, which has had its share of ups and downs over the years. Beech Bend goes back centuries when it was initially used as a picnic area to welcome soldiers back from the Civil War, said David Garvin, a Bowling Green businessman and former owner of Beech Bend.

Garvin’s father bought the property in 1942. He initially built a dance hall and a dining room and continued to use the property as a picnic area. Over the next 40 years, he gradually turned it into an amusement park, adding concession stands, a zoo, small rides and a campground. Garvin later helped his father construct the raceway.

Garvin owned and operated the park for a while before selling it to country music singer Ronnie Milsap. But Milsap was unsuccessful at running the park. Attendance plummeted and Garvin eventually reclaimed the reins.

“During the ’60s and ’70s, there was huge attendance at Beech Bend,” Garvin said. “By the time I talked to Dallas, all of that had gone away.”

When Jones bought the park around 1984, most of the rides were gone. He initially opened the racetrack – at that time, he had been running racetracks for 15 years and was operating two other tracks in Owensboro. A couple of years later, he bought other racetracks and, at one time, he was running five or six racetracks at the same time. He’s operated about seven altogether.

Jones, 69, a native of Muhlenberg County, bought his first racetrack in 1973 in Hardinsburg in Breckenridge County. A friend who had been in the racetrack business for a while promised to help Jones run the track if he bought it. Jones has also owned a Firestone car business and two trucking companies in Muhlenberg County.

But the racetrack was always his passion, and he’s learned to love the amusement park business.

“I think, overall, the amusement park business is a pretty good business to get into,” he said. “Years ago, a friend of mine told me, ‘Dallas, if you want to make money doing a business, get into a business that’s a luxury, not a necessity.’ I’ve been in both of them and it all comes down to management.”

Kenneth Morehead met Jones years ago when he purchased the racetrack. Morehead raced at Beech Bend when he was a teenager, and “I’ve hung around the track all of my life,” he said.

Now Morehead, of Bowling Green, works at the racetrack. He tends to the gate on a part-time basis. He’s worked for Jones “as long as he’s been here,” he said.

“He’s improved it, you can just go out and look and see,” he said. “Whatever he makes, he puts back into the park.”

Jones began rebuilding the amusement park in 1992 when he only operated an old Ferris wheel.

“I was slow about it,” he said. “It grew really slowly the first 10 years.”

In 2004, Jones invested $4.4 million to construct the Kentucky Rumbler. When it opened in 2006, customer traffic increased 31 percent that year.

“It has paid off,” he said.

Now, Jones operates 40 rides, a campground and a water park. But the racetrack continues to be the biggest attraction – its visitors double the number of visitors to the amusement park.

The park hit a snag about two months ago when torrential rains covered parts of it in about 38 feet of water, causing about $500,000 in damage. A concession stand and the campground’s laundry and restrooms were destroyed. Nine buildings must be renovated or rebuilt. The racetrack was completely covered in water and some races were delayed three weeks.

Workers were in the midst of constructing the water park’s addition when the flood hit. Several pipes were washed down the river.

“We spent two weeks walking down the riverbanks on both sides trying to find all the pipes we lost,” Jones said.

They found all but nine pipes, but those were crucial and had to be reordered, further pushing back the water park’s opening day. Now, Jones is unsure of when the water park will open.

“This was terrible,” Jones said. “We just had our hands tied. We couldn’t do nothing with it.”

But as workers continue with water park construction, Jones has a sunny outlook for the park.

“I can see us growing the park for quite some time yet,” he said.