Difficult Task

The lead story on the sports page of my Burlington Hawk Eye this morning included pictures of a near empty section of grandstand at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during this past Sunday's Brickyard 400 leaving the speedway president to wonder how to bring fans back to the track. For the Indy 500, just the fantastic racing that was staged over the final twenty laps back on Memorial Day weekend should help the track close back in on selling out the 225,000 seat facility in 2015. But for the NASCAR weekend, just holding the meager attendance that was there for the Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup events even for next year will be a difficult task. In both races the winner (Ty Dillon and Jeff Gordon) made their "move" on the final restart and then drove away to the win in events that saw very little on track change of positions and even Gordon stated that it is a race won on pit strategy and restarts.

I went to the Brickyard back in 2005 and had seats in the next to the top row of the turn one grandstands. It was a warm day with just enough of a gentle breeze to keep you from getting too hot and about every forty seconds you would be able to see your favorites drive by once again and then disappear from view. I did something that day that according to my mother, whom I know is one of the seven people who reads the Back Stretch regularly (Hi Mom!), I never did even when I was just a young boy at the races. I fell asleep! But I did wake up in time to see Tony Stewart take the win.

I have no interest in returning to Indy to watch NASCAR, but I do believe that my son deserves to get his first ever trip to the Indy 500 soon and I will look forward to taking him!

It is a bit unusual to have a Hobby Stock driver appear to target one event a year, but that seems to be the case with northwest Iowa's Andy Boeckman. Absent from the results for most of the 2014 season, Boeckman's name has reappeared recently as he is likely gearing up for the opportunity to win his fifth IMCA Super Nationals title in Boone. Boeckman now has three feature wins on the season including this past Sunday night on the short track at Raceway Park in Jefferson, South Dakota, and then on Monday night at the big half-mile in Webster City.

On a typical Friday night you will find more than twenty IMCA Modifieds at both the Fairmont Raceway in south central Minnesota and at the Hancock County Speedway in the north central Iowa town of Britt. So where do they all go on Saturday night?? Jackson, Minnesota, doesn't even run the division any more and the Algona Raceway, which essentially sits between those two Friday night tracks, has struggled all season to even have ten Modifieds. This past Saturday night, Algona could only muster five Mods. What makes this even more of a mystery to me is that both Britt and Algona are promoted by the hard working Joe Ringsdorf. It has been thirteen years since I have been up that way, but the drivers seemed to like the place back then so I wonder what has changed.

One track that I want to make a return visit to soon is the Clarke County Speedway in Osceola. I had the honor of announcing the first-ever event at the track that Tim Nelson essentially carved out of the back forty behind his car dealership and I have watched with interest as the facility has grown over the last couple of years. They run every other Saturday night and this past weekend there were 17 Hobby Stocks, 12 B-Mods and 23 Micro Sprints in action along with a couple of other divisions with less than ten competitors. I have really grown to like the Micros since my visit to Port City Raceway last summer and so a trip over to Osceola is on my "to do list".

On my immediate "to do list" though is my favorite ten nights of the season beginning tonight with the opening night of the Arnold Motor Supply 360 Knoxville Nationals. Hope to see you there!