I grew up with it, a real race car sprays mud! It don't look right if it isn't going sideways...

Sprint racing is the real deal, and I know it's still going on someplace.
Tell me about it.

THIS is what real racing is about



(picture courtesy of SteveBricks and the H.A.M.B. The car is the fabulous Morales Brothers "TAMALE WAGON" sponsored by XLNT Foods)




Do you feel it in your guts from just that picture?

I refuse to believe it has been snuffed out everywhere

 

Here's a vid I found of a heat race at Ascot some time back in '86. Rip Williams, Jimmy Oskie and Ron Shuman among others.....watch Schuman in the Orange #21s car come from the back row to win it.

YouTube - Shuman

They still run out in Perris, but it just isn't the same. Rip Williams is racing in this one too, 23 years after the previous vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBA1C80FElE

 

"SURFING ON DIRT" with a small-block thundering in front of you -

That is what sprint car racing is.

Damn. Steve - that just brought back to me everything that sprint racing is!

Thank you SO MUCH for that video - the sound and all of it brought me back to what I really love!

But where are they around the mid-south?
I know the Native American reservations have tracks, but what all is left after the EPA got stupid?

Is El Cajon Speedway still around, or did it fold too?
(Next to Gillespie Field)

You know - if too much of the shut-downs go on, you ought to drag race in Schwarzenneggers DRIVEWAY!


(I bet his kids do anyway)

 

still snow on the ground here,but racing starts in 38 days and sprint cars visit the track once a month or so. hurry up spring time I need my dirt racing fix,NASCAR just doesn't cut it!!

 

Still running at Knoxville up this way as well, when it isn't buried under snow and mud... still can find tracks running them in the area.

 

Closed at the end of the '04 season Wolfie.




117 is gone too. Closed in '83.

There's a 1/4 mile oval at Barona, but sprints haven't raced there that I know of.

 

Wolfie come on up to iowa, We actually have a couple tracks around. knoxville and Osky both run sprint cars and the knoxville track is only 25 miles from my place

Oh and knoxville is where the nationals are held and the home of the national sprint car hall of fame and museum

http://www.knoxvilleraceway.com/

Come up over any weekend but nationals and we will head up adn smell the methanol burning.

 

I know that - me and Poppa were both watching the news when that came out, and we looked at eachother. I said:
"Damn! There goes the whole schiesse haus!"
and he said:
"They're still racing at El Centro..."

The good news is that the American Sprint Car Series is still running nationwide, and the World of Outlaws sprinter series is alive and well.

ASCS alone has over 200 events set for 2010, they lit off their season in Tampa Florida, and I saw where they had some events coming to West Memphis (which is in east Arkansas, right across the bridge from me)

Check out this link to see their 201 schedule of events and standings - you may find a race near you!

American Sprint Car Series

Unfortunately the nearest ones I see to you are in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oregon.

But that West Memphis track is right next door to me....

*I also heard something about the owner of El Cajon Speedway getting SHOT one year... But I don't know what that was connected to.

 

I imagine that offer is open to Steve too - he's much closer than I am. If there's an FTE thing going on out that way I bet he'd jump at it...

WAIT A MINUTE!

IOWA???

I thought you were out in the northwest somewhere...

You're only two states up from me, and they're thin in the north-south direction.

 

It's even southern Iowa at that...You only have to get through Missouri...
http://www.knoxvilleraceway.com/

 

Found a couple more from El Centro circa 1987...look at all the rubber on that track




1982...same place:

 

Oh yeah - tire companies loved that series, because what was needed and wanted explored the very ragged edge of tread and compound developement....

You will never see tires like that on the street or even offroad - but what we do have today benefitted a lot from what was done right there at high speed.

It's an ongoing engineering process, and new materials are found every year.

Back in the day doing a burnout you might have correctly said: "Let's blast some BUTYL!"
But tires have many chemical components they never had before...

Even KEVLAR reinforcement is common - radial design incorporates new ideas and technology. And we get all of that from the most intense testing laboratory of all:

RACING

That is what racing does. It promotes new ideas and concepts, and tests them in the toughest conditions imaginable.

This is why racing is not just a sport - it is a means of advancing automotive technology as rapidly as possible...

There you go! I've stated it clearly.


As crazy as it may seem, it is all part of an ongoing developmental process.


Is it any wonder at all why major companies are interested in sponsoring race cars and trucks?
They want the DATA. With that they build better products

Race teams stand in line to volunteer....

 

looks like our local track on a hot summer night.

 

What I think I will do is go to the races when I can, git down to the pits, and get real engine info from whoever I talk to.

That's how you get that... GO TO THE SOURCE!

 

Heck wolfie, we can go to a sprint car race on sat night and then on sundays I drag race the Galaxie up at the newton speedway too.