By T.J. Buffenbarger
The Performance Racing Industry trade show is filled with cool cars, seminars, vendors, and great nightlife. That’s all fun, but the one thing I look forward to every year are schedules. Opening day of PRI has become Christmas Morning for racing fans ready to officially unwrap schedules from some of their favorite National and Regional touring series. Thursday was no different with six schedules being released.
Rather than divide it up here are my various takes on each schedule released today:
USAC National Midget Car Series
The biggest surprise for me was the two day program slated for June 17 and 18 at Riverside International Speedway in West Memphis, Arkansas. Not exactly a hotbed for midget racing, the track affectional known as “the Ditch” with its southern gumbo surface will see USAC midget action for the first time.
Montpelier Motor Speedway has hosted midget racing for several years and now takes on the opening night of one of the biggest events in the sport, Indiana Midget Week.
The biggest surprise that is not on the schedule is Angell Park Speedway. With Badger Midget Auto Racing Association taking more of a D2 midget rules package on there are no USAC midget or sprint car programs schedule at Sun Prairie this season.
The move of the Turkey Night Grand Prix to Ventura Raceway was a big surprise to some, but with a smaller car count last season I had a feeling the event might move again. Being a one night stand western trip for the National midget series could be a tough sell unless there are some other races with the Western series in line with it.
USAC National Sprint Car Series
The 47 event schedule for the USAC National Sprint Car tour is very aggressive. With the pavement races wiped out for the midget and sprint car divisions has allowed the sprint car series to expand the past several seasons.
The successful Eastern Storm tour only separated by a week before th tour heads on a tour of Jackson, MN, Eagle NE, and Kansas City, KS. Other than the show at Montpelier, Indiana on April 23rd there were no real surprises for me other than the lack of a trip through Wisconsin. Just another solid USAC sprint car schedule.
USAC Silver Crown Series
Another USAC schedule that didn’t yield a lot of surprises after early releases of dates at Salem and Williams Grove. The series will not return to Super Dirt Week and the Belleville High Banks this year. The 100 lap race at Salem should be a real grind for teams. The 4-Crown Nationals ends the 2016 campaign for the Silver Crown Series.
National Sprint League
The biggest surprise with this year’s NSL schedule was no co-sanctioned events listed with IRA or MOWA but several co-sanctioned events with the World of Outlaws. I will admit to having to look up Mason City Motor Speedway to see where it was, but for the most part the NSL schedule laid out how I anticipated. Ending the year at Farmington, MO and non-point events listed for the Dirt Classic at Lincoln Speedway were the only things that stood out to me as surprising.
ASCS National Tour
The ASCS National Tour schedule appears to be standard issue until mid-May with a two day stand at Texas Motor Speedway. In June ASCS makes its only appearance near our home base at Plymouth, Hartford, and Brownstown Speedways. All will experience first time visits from the series. That Northern swing leads into ASCS Speedweek which leads into a four week Northwest swing before heading over to the 360 Knoxville Nationals.
The one facility on the tour I had to look up was Fairgrounds Speedway in Cortez, Colorado, where the series visits on September 30th. The stretch between May 29th and August 27th will likely decide who will be the champion for the series with a very aggressive tour that covers a large geographical area.
World of Outlaws
The World of Outlaws schedule always has some flux from season to season. Cotton Bowl Speedway stood out where a TBA was located earlier in the fall when the first portion of the schedule was released. Due to the value of the Canadian dollar only Ohsweken Speedway holds the country’s only World of Outlaws event.
Fremont Speedway taking over the slot previously held by Attica Raceway Park was surprising just because of the Friday date. Otherwise the schedule turned out about how I expected it to look.