Eldora Speedway & short track racing

Have you been to your local short tracks? Have you seen your neighbors on the weekend, racing their pony stock, late modifieds or modifieds? Have you heard the squeal of the rubber against concrete or asphalt? Have you seen the rooster tails of the dirt behind a race car flying sideways on a dirt track?

What the hell are you waiting for? If you like NASCAR, you should love the talent at your local track!

A few miles from me is a 1/4 mile asphalt track called Spartan Speedway. I love watching the local racers tackle this track. The oval racing is great and the figure-eight racing is a hoot and yet terrifying at the same time. These men and women are everyday people who I pass at the grocery store and would never know it. They are living their own dreams by racing on the weekends. Some even hope to work their way up through the ranks and someday race in the big leagues. Go and pay attention, you just might be watching a future NASCAR champion in the making!

It was kind of cool that Michigan International Speedway took out most of the turn 3 and 4 stands and gave one to Spartan Speedway. It's so much better now watching the racing and not falling off (or through) the old wooden bleachers! LOL

www.spartanspeedway.com



My first ever experience at a dirt track was many, many, many moons ago at the I-96 Speedway in Ionia. The only recollection I have of that race is the fact I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see and I was filthy when I left. I never went back, partly because I lived 4 hours away and partly because my first experience there was not the greatest.

So this year of firsts for me included a visit to Tony Stewarts 1/2 mile dirt track called Eldora Speedway in Ohio. I figured it was going to be just like any other race track, but boy was I wrong. I would be there every weekend if it wasn't a three hour trip from my house.

www.eldoraspeedway.com/

In my quest to meet and get to know more about my hero, I chose to buy tickets for the June running of the 8th Annual Prelude to the Dream. I took my father and my little brother for Fathers Day. Don't be fooled though, it was just as much for me as for them!

The Prelude is a charity event with a host of famous drivers from NASCAR, IRL, World of Outlaws, etc. It's one night during the middle of the week where the stars of the auto racing world come out to play. It is in the middle of the week, but since we were not going to stay the night, it was no big deal.

We left Michigan early Wednesday morning and headed down I-69 to Fort Wayne and cut across on 30 towards Lima, OH. Now word to the wise, don't let the damn GPS tell you how to get there. My suggestion is you plug the GPS in for reference but you get a good old fashioned road map to follow. I kid you not, we were in the middle of mile after mile after mile of corn fields, grain fields and whatever else it is Ohio likes to grow. I started to feel quite a bit anxiety as all civilization melted away and here we were on a one lane road with farm land surrounding us like "amber waves of grain." Yes, I now understand the reference in the song!

Finally, after traveling down a road that had a stop sign every freaking mile, we were suddenly stopped in our path by a lovely sign that said "BRIDGE OUT." Happiest damn day of my life as I quickly turned left and out of that agricultural nightmare! Much to my surprise, the GPS had us running parallel to State Route 118 which Eldora is on! So down 118 we go and finally we arrived at the track.

It's a great facility. Clean, great layout and just an overall nice area. The track staff were very friendly, the seating options were unique and welcomed and the concession prices were very reasonable. But the best part of all was the track. What an awesome facility.

We found our seats, which were 3 rows from the bottom of the stands. But don't be fooled, we could still see the whole track which is what makes it so much fun. We put on our protective eye wear and waited for the show. I really wasn't sure what to expect.

Do you know what was an absolute blast? Waiting for the racing to start and watching in the pits to see who we could pick out in their street clothes. I think the mark of a true race fan is when you can identify people when they are NOT in uniform. I was impressed because my father saw the first one. He picked out Ray Evernham.

My brother and I decided to take a walk and as we walked out the back, we walked by another racing legend. I mean literally, we were 2 feet from him. I recognized him right away and I whispered to my brother look, there goes Darrell Waltrip! He couldn't believe it. He asked me if we should ask for an autograph and I said it just didn't feel right. He was was walking fast and looked like he was on a mission so I told him no. But it sure was fun getting close to him!

We did catch him and Larry MacReynolds in the pits later.

After about an hour of people watching, they finally started broadcasting live on HBO Pay-Per-View. They start to run what everyone was calling Hot Laps and afterwards, the guys would go out onto the track and make marks in the mud on the wall. Some guy told me it was so they drivers could tell the difference between the wall and the track. Makes sense.

They went through driver introductions and all the drivers posed for a picture in Eldora's victory lane.

This is only part of them, but it was the most important part to me! LOL

So the intros are done, they pile in the back of trucks and make a parade lap around the track. They are right next to the fence and for me it was the first time seeing up close Danica and Jimmie and Kyle and Kurt and all the others that raced that night. And something I noticed about their faces... and it really didn't even hit me until now after seeing all of them down at MIS. At Eldora they were relaxed and having fun. It was as if the weight of their responsibilities was lighter and they could just be men (and a woman) in fast cars racing just for the pure joy of it. It was awesome to see.

Now it's on to the racing. Wow, I love the dirt late modifieds and the way they go around that track always on the edge. To go fast, you have to be out of control or at the brink of losing control. What a rush.

I grabbed a decent pic of Tony and Ryan after a run. I'll just post a few pics to tell some of the story.

This picture (below) is actually of when Darrell Waltrip cam out and got into the passenger side of one of the cars and Tony drove him around the track a few times. OMG, that was awesome. Later I heard what DW was saying in the car and I couldn't help but laugh. I would LOVE to have taken Darrell's place!!

Anyway, the moral of this story is that you really don't get to see the talent of these drivers until they are out from under the 'heavy-hand' of NASCAR. Man, they can drive. At the end of the actual final feature race, Tony made this move that earned me a mouth full of dirt. I wish I could have taped it. It was incredible. Here are all these cars flying sideways along the top of the track and out of no where comes Tony. He passes a bunch of cars on the inside (he's kissing the inside corner) sideways. I couldn't stop my mouth from hitting the ground which of course is NEVER a good idea at a dirt track.

It was the first time I ever had the opportunity to truly see his raw talent. I have a tremendous amount of respect for his driving after my little dirt track experience.

Our drive time down and back is about three hours each way. In order to afford to do things like this I try to avoid staying overnight when at all possible. So we headed up US 127 at about 12:30am.

Don't do that, ever. That road is a nightmare at night. Just saying.

On 7/13/2012 I went back to Eldora for the second time. I took my friend Kecia with me because Tony's fan club was supposed to have a fan appreciation day. They ended up cancellng it, but since we had bought tickets to the World of Outlaws Knight before the Kings Royale, we ended up going anyway. It was great! The sprint cars were what I saw at the I-96 speedway. Boy, they are fast and Google tells me they have more horsepower than the NASCAR stock cars do! Tony raced that night too but he sucked. LOL But now I can say I've seen him drive a few different types of cars!

The fan club did give us a great little goodie bag for coming. It had a lugnut from one of Tony's race cars which was pretty cool.

I guess for this story I just want to encourage all of you to start visiting and supporting your local tracks. They are the birthplace for the next generation of heros! Also, if you get the chance to see the NASCAR stars on the dirt, DO IT! I believe Tony is right. They need to add a dirt track to the current Sprint Cup schedule!!!