COMMENTARY

Tonight (assuming it’s not rained out) I am planning on driving to Crawford County Speedway in Denison, Iowa for the ASCS Midwest show. I’ve never been to the ½ mile in Denison, so I’m looking forward to adding another track to my list. When I visited their site to look up information about the race, I noticed they didn’t include the start time of the show! That is sort of an important piece of information! The other thing that struck me was their plan of running FOUR additional classes along with the sprints.

That is four classes too many. I realize we live in a back-gate revenue world, but come on, that’s getting a little greedy. Nothing like lowering the quality of a show and making it unnecessarily long with too many support programs.

It is times like these that make me remember why I was never excited to watch races at venues that don’t “get it” when it comes to special events featuring sprint cars.

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I posted some results from a 305 sprint show run at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, Iowaon Wednesday night. My friend, Matt Stelzer finished second in that race. What makes the story interesting is Stelzer received set-up instructions from Aaron Allgood via cell phone. Allgood had planned to travel with the team to Osky, but work conflicts kept him in Lincoln.

This is more proof that Allgood may be the second coming of Karl Kinser. Or, he should stay home from the races more often and do everything by phone.

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Outspoken, and colorful IndyCar vet Paul Tracy will return to action when the IndyCar Series makes a stop in Edmonton, Alberta, Canadaon July 26th. Tracy will run a third car for Vision Racing, and carry the Subway colors as a primary sponsor.

Tracy has not raced in major open wheel competition since the CART series finale at Long Beach in mid-April.

Another long time NASCAR sponsor, Dollar General Stores, has teamed up with Sarah Fischer racing. Fisher has not raced in the IndyCar series since the Indy 500 in May, but will debut her new colors on August 9that the Kentucky Speedway.

Perhaps the unification is making a positive impact on the sponsorship front. Two long time NASCAR sponsors now have some involvement in open wheel racing. There’s a long way to go in regaining what was lost to NASCAR, but it’s a good start.

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Daryn Pittman won this year’s Kings Royal at Eldora Speedway. It’s always a feel-good story when you see a new face in victory lane, at one of sprint car racing’s most prestigious events.

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It is official, my bachelor party will be held at Eagle Raceway on July 26th. Come on, what else would I do? I suppose it’s fitting, my dad has his at Midwest Speedway and I’m having mine at Eagle.

As you can tell, mental illness runs in my family.

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Here’s to a safe, but exciting weekend of racing!