Several months back Jim arranged our travel plans so that we could attend one of the biggest dirt track events of the year, the Kings Royal weekend at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, OH. It's one of the biggest events on the World of Outlaws Sprint Car calendar. The Kings Royal itself is held on Saturday night, but we went on Friday, "The Knight Before." (Click on the pictures to enlarge them.)
The main entrance to Eldora Speedway. The whole track is built down in a bowl, so when you enter you're actually at the top row of the main grandstand.
Our seats were just under the edge of the roof. Rain threatened all evening so we were glad to have the roof over us, but fortunately the rain never came.
We recently bought some new stadium seats and got to use them for the first time. They were comfy.
Our seats were high enough to see all around the track. If we were much lower not only would the backstretch be blocked, but we would have gotten covered in dirt kicked up by the cars.
The concourse area behind the grandstand looked like souvenir row at a NASCAR event.
A couple of views of the speedway from outside turn 1. Our seats were in the covered grandstand on the left.
Many of the people in infield pit area watched the races from the roof of a building or on top of their haulers.
The cars on the backstretch of the track.
Racing action in the 30-lap Main Event.
At the end of each race there was a fireworks display and fire would shoot up in the air from fire pots in the infield.
It gets very dusty at a dirt track race!
We had a great time. There were a couple of wrecks, including a one-car flip in the first race. (The crew repaired the car in time for the driver to race later in the evening.) I must say there wasn't much passing, but the cars were super fast (low-13 second laps times on a 1/2-mile track, that's roughly 137mph) and it was exciting to watch them sliding sideways around the turns. All in all a fun evening.
We had a fun day today too, and we'll tell you about that in tomorrow's post. See you then.
3 comments:
I have a friend who used to drive sprint cars. He parked his trailer with the sprint car on it in my yard one time. He also holds the sprint car altitude record. I believe he went through a billboard or something after he had a wreck and went airborne.
Glad you had a good time at Eldora! The sprint cars are crazy fast at that track.
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