I’ve been a NASCAR fan since I was a little kid.
I have fond memories of playing the 2001 video game on next to my dad with an early air set of gas pedals and a steering wheel that he had bought me for Christmas. It barely stayed put on the table, the gas pedals had some significant range input issues, but I have no memories of it ruining the fun we were having.
It’s probably the earliest memory I have, but I wanted to pick that out for this analogy for a reason.
There isn’t a lot that NASCAR can do that would make myself not watch anymore. I was hooked from the start; but I’ve seen bad things, watched fans phase out of tuning in, played bad video games, and I think I was in the stands crying when Jeff Gordon wrecked his Pepsi Throwback car in Talladega in 2009.
This doesn’t come without bias and I don’t say it lightly.
One of the most egregious handlings I’ve seen out of NASCAR has done in the past 20 years is what has been done to racing fans in Iowa – specifically at the Iowa Speedway.
When the track was built and three years later hosting the Xfinity and Truck series, the goal was to deliver a Cup race to it.
NASCAR purchased the track in 2016. Fans in Iowa were told that was good news. Four years later, Iowa Speedway was as close to a junkyard as you can get without it actually being one.
It wasn’t all bad for us Iowans though – who saw Knoxville Raceway host two Truck Series races in consecutive years – the second running of the race being one of the best the series has seen all year.
The 2023 schedule came out Wednesday. Knoxville Raceway? Boom, gone.
We’ve built Always Race Day with a focus on the state of Iowa. We’re headquartered here if you consider the counter I’m writing this at as a building, and a plethora of our readers are from this state.
I’ve been to more races than I can count and I’ve seen the state’s dirt tracks benefit greatly from the amount of national late model tours that have run throughout the summer at new tracks all over.
The common takeaway after you get passed the great surfaces at these tracks is that fans continue to show up and grow their base little by little.
I understand its not all fans, too. After all, Road America sold out its Cup Series race last year and didn’t make a return to the schedule for 2023.
Although, those fans reflected amazingly for what we’ve built here. If you met me walking around Knoxville Raceway after the pandemic shutdown when we launched, I didn’t know more than a lick about dirt racing.
But the fans, do. And drivers and teams – all of which are filled with great people that have taught me a crap ton about their sport and even what I do.
Dirt racing stories on our site were outnumbering NASCAR stories in views more than Georgia did Oregon in the first week of the CFB season. I don’t want to say that page views are near the top of our priority list, but it made us cover dirt racing far more diligently than I had considered.
That result was made by having races – whether it was one big one or a slew of national events through the summer – there was (and is) things to talk about and action to see.
IndyCar and Hy-Vee delivered the event of the year in July in the series’ first trip back to the track in two years. It was the most blown away I have ever been at any race I’ve seen, and I’m not exaggerating in the slightest.
I’m not suggesting NASCAR brings Iowa and Knoxville two cup dates each in a season.
I’m just asking what the hell racing fans in Iowa need to do to go to a NASCAR race that isn’t four hours away or more.
The Midwest has some damn passionate racing fans and Iowa hosts the biggest dirt race in the World.
Give back to the people that tried to support it when it was here and fix what you almost demolished in Newton.
