Thankful for the NSL

The creation of Tod Quiring’s National Sprint League is a huge deal in the Midwest.  For years I have been hoping for something like this to happen and the NSL is exactly the right idea. Thank you to Tod Quiring for stepping up. Sprint car teams can race multiple nights a week in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, California, and now we have the same opportunity for teams and fans in the Midwest.

Knoxville is the hub of sprint car racing, yet you can’t find much sprint car racing surrounding the hub unless you drive 3 or 5 hours away from Knoxville (especially 410’s). So many people move to Iowa just to race at Knoxville: Kerry Madsen, Ian Madsen, Skip Jackson, Jayme Moyle, Wayne Johnson, RJ Johnson, and Keoni Texeira… all of them have moved from other countries or states to be able to race at the Mecca of dirt track racing.  They only had one or two places to race regularly, but now with the addition of the NSL the landscape changes.

The 30 race preliminary schedule looks promising as the NSL is not going to compete against Knoxville or Huset’s weekly shows. The schedule works around the schedules of the WoO, MOWA, and IRA as well.  With 4 NSL shows being at Knoxville on weekly Saturday nights, and 4 more at Huset’s in conjunction with their weekly Sunday shows, this gives more teams a chance to race at home and still have 22 other shows sprinkled in there to get more laps, more experience, more prize money, and hopefully expose and attract more fans to sprint car racing. Hopefully that translates into more paying customers at Knoxville weekly and for the Nationals.

The analogy I will use is that of building a church.  If we spread the good news and get people to come and have a good time, become believers that sprint car racing is the coolest form of racing, they will want more.  You have your Vatican City in Knoxville, but you need the other congregations to reach more people and attract more followers of the faith.  We needed someone to start those congregations, and essentially the NSL is going to do that with a tent revival tour. 

The World of Outlaws pays $150,000 to the winner for 90 races.  Tod Quiring and Big Game is putting up $350,000 into a point fund paying $75,000 to win for 30 races.  Throw in the Knoxville point fund in there ($20,000 to win) with less travel (350 mile radius) and do the math.  Some of the WoO teams might be money ahead to race the NSL and Knoxville rather than the grind traveling coast to coast to get beat by Schatz and Pittman night in and night out.

Right now the NSL breakdown is 8 races in Iowa, 5 in Nebraska, 5 in South Dakota, 4 in Minnesota, 1 in Missouri, and 1 in Wisconsin.  All 4 Minnesota races are at Jackson Speedway. With 6 open dates yet to fill the schedule. Here are my thoughts of where those might be.  I would expect one more race in Missouri if not two more on the schedule, possibly at Lakeside, Wheatland, Farmington, or Sedalia.  Other possibilities I think are races at Deer Creek, Beaver Dam, Farley, maybe a MOWA co-sanctioned event in Jacksonville, IL, and possibly 1 more at Oskaloosa.  The Marshalltown race that was going to happen the Tuesday before the Nationals was axed, in my opinion to help the Front Row Challenge in case they need that rain date, which is good for Terry McCarl who needs that date open for his event.  It’s too bad for Toby Kruse at Marshalltown who announced it too soon on his end. Maybe they still get a race on another date, but I have safety concerns at Marshalltown anyway. One stuck throttle and a lot of things could go wrong.  Same with a sprint car race at Boone Speedway. Boone would be a great track for sprint cars if it weren’t for the 16 light poles on the inside berm and catwalks with no protection for cars flying off the corners.

The NSL should be made up of the following drivers/teams.  18-Ian Madsen, 24-Terry McCarl, 82-Dusty Zomer, and 21-Brian Brown, and at least one Big Game Treestands car (presumably Danny Lasoski) for sure.  I would expect to see Cole Wood, Wayne Johnson, Justin Henderson, Brooke Tatnell, and Rico Abreu at a lot of these races.  I think there is a good possibly that Jason Johnson and Brad Loyet might leave the ASCS series, as both have shops in the Midwest. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Bill Balog join the series either. I’ve also heard from a credible source that Dominic Scelzi and his team are looking into the possibility of having a team and shop based in the Knoxville area to race in the NSL.

The only question mark I see is if there will be enough cars to make the whole series. I fear that some of the tracks won’t have enough “local” cars to fill up a full 20 car field. Car counts were up this past year at Knoxville, but I’m just not sure if there are 10-12 car owners who can afford to race 18 nights at Knoxville AND 26 other nights. 

I’m happy to see that there will be a live streaming option for this series.  Speed Shift TV will carry all of the races which is great for the fans and an extra revenue stream for the series.

Kudos to Quiring for scooping up Chuck Zitterich, Bill W and Natalie Sather to run the series. That is a good makeup of quality people.  

2015 will be a great year for sprint car fans in the Midwest. I hope it works out for everyone and the sport flourishes.