No Wings, No Rut, Plenty of Dirt, Some Asphalt, and Lacking Local Coverage

First up...

The great experiment of 2007 is about to roll off tomorrow night at Eagle Raceway. For the first time in several years, Eagle will host a non-wing sprint car race. Promoter Roger Hadan expects 25-30 sprinters in attendance.

Perhaps I'm being overly skeptical on this, but I will be surprised if they have more than 20 show up. I hope I'm wrong, as I really enjoy non-wing racing and would love to see it pick up here in the Midwest. However there are not many teams around here used to taking the tops off. Couple that with the fact that many locals don't want to risk damaging equipment for the regular Eagle shows, I think it's going to be tough to fill out a field.

I must give Hadan credit for going out on a limb and trying something new. I've always felt that Eagle could support a non-wing show, however I'm not sure this current formula will work the way they'd like it to.

With the ASCS Midwest, Eagle winged, and now non-winged, that gives the local sprint car racer too many choices where to run. I'd like to get into that subject more, but I think that'll be a separate posting.Of course I could be 100% wrong on this. Come Saturday night they could have a nice sized field of cars show up from other parts to run sans wings. I just don't think they can depend too heavily on a strong local presence.

In other Eagle news, it sounds like they’ve gone to great lengths in an attempt to seek out and fix the elusive turn one rut. Good luck fellas! They've also re-worked some of the dirt in turns one and two. You do have to appreciate the work they are doing in attempting to make a better surface.

Other events...

The United States Auto Club will run for the second time at Iowa Speedway on Saturday. If the weather cooperates it should be an interesting event. Last fall the USAC drivers set amazing speeds at the new 7/8 tri-oval and tomorrow should see similar high speeds.

It's rare to see USAC shows here in the Midwest, and even more so to have all three national divisions running. I'll be in attendance at this even so I'll try to have some good photos and stories for Sunday.

It was also announced that Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will take injured Tracy Hines' place this weekend for Tony Stewart Racing. Stenhouse Jr. has already put together a strong season, including back to back wins at the Copper on Dirt at Manzanita Speedway in a Sprinter and Silver Crown last February. No doubt he'll give the 21 car vacated by Hines a great run this weekend.

In addition to the race in Newton, we're pulling the double and making a run to Knoxville tomorrow night. There was little chance that I was going to be in Iowa on a Saturday in May and not check out the action at Knoxville.

A little pavement racing in the afternoon, and dirt racing at night. It's a full life.

And Finally...

Ah yes, it's been race season here in Nebraska since the second week of April, and the Lincoln Journal Start just now got around to publishing their "Turn Three" page in the sports section.

If you have a chance to read this section-pass. I take that back, read Jason Orth's coverage on the local race scene, it's the only saving grace for this lazily done section. Otherwise it's mostly nothing but pulling NASCAR stories off the AP wires.

Why bother actually covering local racing when you can take the easy way out and cover NASCAR stories? There's nothing better than reading about NASCAR's fan behavior at Talladega, especially after a week's worth of analysis from every other news outlet in the country. And with a lack of TV coverage, it's so difficult to get any NASCAR news around here.

I'd love the section if they actually covered racing locally. And I'm not talking just open wheel. There are a lot of tracks, a lot of classes, and a lot of teams that deserve some coverage in this area.

I'm not suggesting the Journal Star never cover national racing, or outright ignore NASCAR (though it would suit me just fine) just throttle back on it some.

Turn Three comes across to me as merely an attempt sell ads for a new section, and at the same time, not having to pay the sports staff for doing the footwork. With the exception of a few local stories, and Jason's reporting, there are few things that make this section worth reading.