By Brian Liskai
FREMONT, Ohio – Bringing sprint car racing back to the Sandusky County Fair was a big hit among the fans – old and new – and race teams. The Aug. 23 event at the historic Fremont Speedway marked the first time sine 1976 that sprint cars competed during the fair. And the success of the event could lead to further races during the fair.
The return of sprint car racing helped create a record attendance for the opening of the 164th Sandusky County Fair. The racing not only drew a huge crowd, but 37 sprint cars, one of the largest fields of 305 sprints in Ohio all season long.
“The fair board and I were extremely pleased with how it went. We got so much positive feedback from fairgoers, race teams and the community. We are tentatively planning to bring sprint car racing back to the fair next year. Grass root racing got its start at fairs across this country including at Fremont…it was THE event back in the day and we hope we can make it that again,” said Fremont Speedway Promoter Rich Farmer.
“The atmosphere was electric. It was so cool having area businesses and residents stepping up and adding money to the purse. A huge thank you to Joe and Fran Darmofal and Alvin Roepke at Vision Quest. Their involvement helped push this race at the beginning. I personally want to thank the fair board…they took a chance and worked with us to promote this event,” Farmer added.
Fremont’s Paul Weaver would take the win in the feature event and take home $2,000.
“The racing throughout the field was awesome. I can’t thank all the teams enough for supporting this and for their patience in working with us on the logistics of pitting in the infield. It was so cool to see the cars in the infield. It brought back a lot of memories for a lot of people and hopefully created some new dirt track fans,” Farmer said.
For more information about Fremont Speedway go to www.fremontohspeedway.com. For more information about the Sandusky County Fair go to www.sanduskycountyfair.com