By Larry Boos
ROSSBURG, OH (August 30) – Citing the current state of the economy, officials from Eldora Speedway and the United States Auto Club (USAC) have announced a slight format change for this year’s running of the annual Four Crown Nationals over the weekend of September 23 & 24.
Each night of the Friday/Saturday doubleheader will now offer complete racing programs; with no need for the teams to incur overnight expenses.
Friday’s action will continue to feature the winged Sprint Cars of the World of Outlaws (WoO) series, along with the recently added UMP (United Midwestern Promoters) Modifieds. For the WoO troops, it will mark their final visit of the 2011 season to Eldora Speedway, with a full one-day, points paying, show. For the Modifieds, it will be their final tune-up before the UMP Nationals, which will be held two weeks later, over the weekend of October 7 & 8. UMP National points will be on the line, but the Eldora points chase will have already ended.
The entire USAC program, featuring the Indianapolis based sanctioning body’s three touring National divisions – Midgets, Sprint Cars and Silver Crown – will be staged on Saturday. Aware of the affect of daylight conditions on dirt racing surfaces, the officials will work diligently to pull off a rapid pace event on Saturday, beginning with hot laps pushed back to 5:00 PM.
Each of the three divisions will hot lap at time trial during this period in an attempt to earn positioning in the competition events, slated to take the green flat at 8:00 PM.
In an effort to maintain the coveted autograph session that has become part and parcel of the Four Crown tradition, both the track and USAC officials will make every effort to move the preliminary hot laps and time trials through quickly, to allow for a brief open pit session. At this time, the fans would be allowed to enter the pit area to meet and greet the drivers.
While all of this action is taking place on Eldora’s renowned one-half mile clay oval, the facility’s newest addition, little eldora speedway, will feature USAC’s .25 Midget Series in a National event.
Complete event information may be found on the track website www.eldoraspeedway.com; where tickets may be ordered online, or by calling the track office at 937.338.3815.