Iowa Speedway SOLD!

NASCAR buys Iowa Speedway. I have several thoughts on that. This is a good thing for the city of Newton. This brings financial stability, confidence, hope for the future, and plenty of money to support the track on its own without more help from the taxpayers. NASCAR is the second largest professional sport franchise in America after all. They have money, political power, and will know how to use the Iowa Speedway best. But this doesn’t mean its all good news. Newton and Jasper County should be prepared for political issues with ISC.

Since the track opened in 2006 the track saw growth the first few years with IndyCar, the NASCAR Nationwide, and Camping World Track series races. But then the new shiny facility lost its momentum and seen attendance slipping in recent years. Having five race weekends was too much, especially with one competing against the college football season and another against the 360 Knoxville Nationals (where 10,000 race fans and prospective ticket buyers are already at) made terrible business sense. They were smart to cut down to three weekends for 2014.

Knoxville Knights: Chapter 1

For about 3 years now I’ve been tinkering with a fictional story about sprint car racing. I thought I would throw out a sampling of the story and see what kind of reaction I get. Feel free to e-mail your comments to me at arniebhg@yahoo.com and let me know if you like it, if you think it needs work, or if you want to read more. I appreciate the Knoxville Raceway for giving me this platform to experiment a bit.

Knoxville Knights by Eric Arnold
Chapter 1: The County Fair

It was a hot and humid summer day in the middle of July. There is no wind, the grass is brown, so hot that you still sweat trying to cool off sitting under a shade tree. But it was race day and Steve Bennett and his crew made up of his two sons Tony and Todd were at Knoxville on the fairgrounds lot behind turn three, working on their number 42 sprint car in preparation for tonight’s race.

Interview with Keoni Texeira

On July 20th this past season Knoxville Raceway had its first driver entrant from the state of Hawaii, 30 year-old Keoni Texeira. A native of Honolulu, he ended up moving to Moulton, Iowa this past year for work but he had a dream of racing himself. Iowa is known as the “Field of Dreams” after all. A chance meeting and making contacts with the right person one night and a deal fell into place for him to race a 305 sprint car a few times this season. He raced three nights in 2013 where he qualified well each night, never worse than fourth, and finished eighth and 11th in his two features. Night three on August 3rd he crashed in his heat race and was done for the season. After a successful dirt racing career with over 20 wins back home in Hawaii, his local track closed, but he was determined to stay in racing somehow.

WoO Season in Review

The World of Outlaws season has come to an end.  It was good to see some of our Knoxville Regulars make the trip to Charlotte for the World Finals.  Brian Brown had a good showing with a couple of top ten’s, Ian Madsen, Mark Dobmeier, Justin Henderson, and Wayne Johnson also made the trip.  The World Finals has turned into a big three day event where the dirt track racing world comes together in the center of the racing business industry.  I would even consider it the fifth “major” in sprint car racing with the four majors being the Knoxville Nationals, Eldora Kings Royal, Williams Grove National Open, and the Chico Gold Cup.  I ponied up to watch the DirtVision broadcast which I hadn’t done before and I was impressed with their live PPV coverage.