The sun is shining here in southeast Iowa and while they are calling for our first round of frost overnight it should be a great night for late season racing. There are two great shows this weekend within an hour from my home and tonight I will head to Donnellson since they are running a complete program with heats, last chance races as needed, and features in all five divisions. Saturday's weather looks just as bright and perhaps even a bit warmer and, if I am able to go, I will then be in West Liberty as the Liberty 100 will wrap up the 2014 campaign for the Deery Brothers Summer Series for IMCA Late Models.
Other racing in the region this weekend includes the Cornhusker Classic at I-80 Speedway between Lincoln and Omaha, The Crate Hater 50 at the Jackson County Speedway in Maquoketa, a MOWA Sprint Car and POWRi Midget doubleheader in Illinois at Lincoln and Jacksonville and the Bahama Bracket Nationals will run Saturday and Sunday in Rockford. There were three events scheduled for tracks in Missouri this weekend and while the Open Wheel Nationals at I-35 Winston may stay north of the persistent rains down that the way, the MLRA finale weekend at the Lucas Oil Speedway may be at risk. The Poplar Bluff Speedway has already postponed the 14th Annual Cotton Boll Cup to next weekend.
It doesn't look like it is just a rumor anymore as the new 410 Sprint Car series being organized by Big Game Treestands owner Tod Quiring announced this week that it will have four dates at the Knoxville Raceway in 2015. If you clicked on the link you will see those four dates at Knoxville the first being May 9th, plus the Eagle Raceway will host a series event on May 8th with Phil and Ryan Durst posting a $20,000 bonus if a driver is able to win both nights. So that is five nights and with the series looking to schedule up to thirty dates it will be interesting to see just where those other dates will land. It sounds like Quiring wants to make this very doable for tracks from a cost standpoint so hopefully we will see some of these events in the eastern part of Iowa, besides Knoxville, as well. Somebody asked me the other day just how this series was going to make it with such a high points fund and I echoed what a Sprint Car friend of mine told me when this was first being talked about. After funding two World of Outlaws Sprint Car teams for the past several years, the "cost" of presenting this series will be dimes to the dollars that he has spent before and his business, Big Game Treestands, will get featured exposure at each event that will be held in his prime market area. Makes total sense!
I am excited to see how this schedule comes together over the next six months.
Perhaps as a result of the new budget allocations for Big Game Treestands, Craig Dollansky announced this week that he will return to the World of Outlaws tour in 2015 behind the wheel of the Destiny Motorsports #7. This team owned by Rick and Barb Rogers out of Williston, North Dakota, had veteran Jac Haudenschild at the wheel for most of 2014 before recently pairing up with Arkansas driver Derek Hagar. One of Dollansky's longtime supporters, Aggressive Hydraulics, will sponsor and the team will give a preview of next year by running at the Outlaws World Finals in Charlotte the first full weekend of November.
The pairing doesn't surprise me, but the plans do as it would seem that a North Dakota based team with a driver from Minnesota would be perfectly suited for the yet to be named new series here in the upper Midwest.
Did you hear that Jeremy Mayfield is planning a full season of Dirt Late Model racing in 2015? The former NASCAR Cup driver that was banned due to drug issues is joining the dirt Late Model ranks next weekend at Carolina Speedway in Gastonia, North Carolina, with plans to run a full schedule in 2015. I don't really have a comment, just find it interesting and I will be checking the results to see how things go.
Don't forget to log into Track Talk with the Racin' Boys from 8 to 10 a.m. tomorrow. They once again predicted last week that Kyle Larson would get his first Cup win and he came oh so close to finally making that prediction come true finishing second to Joey Logano at the Kansas Speedway. Yes, Kyle will win one someday and perhaps soon, but when he does I sure hope that the words "just as we predicted" are not used. I am interested to see if they discuss the announcement made by the new sprint car series as a couple of weeks ago, while discussing the rumor, Scott and Kirk did not seem to like the idea of having a new series of this type in the area as it would likely have an effect on the ASCS National 360 Tour that they are closely tied to. The "Boys" are always a good listen and I make a point of tuning in each and every Saturday, perhaps you should too. This will be your starting point.
It was sad to see the following posted on Facebook this week by first-year Cedar County Raceway promoters Rodney and Debbie Ohrt:
"RD Promotions would like to say we will not be returning as track promoters to the Cedar County Raceway for the 2015 season. Debbie and i sat down at the end of the season and figured are books. We lost alot of money and the bank will not go along with us to get more so the main reason we will not be back is because we lost alot of money. This was are decision not the fairboards. We would like to thank all of our help , sponsors and fans and most of all are drivers who came out and supported us week in and week out. I feel we had some great racing every week and i would put are drivers up against anyone. I hope they get a new promoter for next year at Tipton. There are some things that needs fixed by the fairboard but they know about them. The fairboard treated us good this season. I really hope everyone reads this and don't assume things. Debbie and I put are heart and soul in the track week in and week out . We knew that this wasn't going to make us rich but we didn't expect to lose the amount we did.We hope this makes it clear why we are not coming back. All of are equipment is for sale and it was a pleasure to meet and see old and new friends."
From all reports the Ohrts were very well liked by drivers and fans alike and they had the support of their hometown community in Tipton. So is the fact that they could not make a weekly program work there a sign that perhaps now is not a good time to be trying to race weekly in Tipton? Going through the results each week I knew that the books probably weren't looking good for the small town track as their featured division, the Modifieds, had by far the largest car count each race night. How can that be a bad thing? From a fan's perspective it isn't, but if the division that commands the largest purse by position is outnumbering your support classes by two to one then things aren't going to look so good on the balance sheet unless you are filling the grandstands each night. Obviously that wasn't happening.
So what now for Tipton? The first thing that jumps out at me is what I just mentioned. If a small town race track cannot have full fields in the lower purse divisions like the Hobby Stocks or the Four Cylinders (no, they didn't have the four bangers there in 2014, but that was because the track would only draw single digits in the class in the years before) and have those drivers be from the communities right there in the area so that they would draw in friends and family, then it has little or no chance to succeed. And frankly, those cars and drivers just aren't around Tipton anymore for whatever reason.
Then you have to look at the reality of the situation. Within a 100 mile radius of Tipton you have quite a few race tracks that are running weekly on Friday nights, and Tipton isn't the only one of those that has struggled for cars or fans. The market is over-saturated and if nobody steps in to give it another try next year at Tipton, the drivers and fans from there will not have too far to go to still go racing. Two of those other tracks, Farley and Davenport, both have schedules where they take two or three Friday nights off a year. Perhaps the thing to do for Tipton in 2015 would be to run a partial schedule that would take advantage of those "off nights" at area tracks along with a Spring "special", a Fall "special" and a mid-week fair race?
It is a tough thing to hear when it is "your track", but we have too many that are trying to run weekly given the current state of the sport and having one or two pull back from weekly racing will be a benefit to all. I have been politely saying this for several years now, but you watch. Every time it looks like one will actually close down or at least stop racing weekly, somebody comes along who thinks that they can somehow do better than those before them, or the fair board decides to operate it themselves. I won't be surprised if that happens again.....
I love the racing at Tipton and always have ever since we towed John Vantiger's Street Stock up there every Sunday night to race against two of the best, Bruce Current and Johnny Spaw amongst others. Hopefully racing will continue there for years to come in one manner or the other, but when good local people lose a lot of money trying to keep weekly racing alive, something has to change.
Go help a promoter make a dollar this weekend!
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