It was that time of the you again. Every year at this time I make the long hike up from Deep South Florida to Ohio for the Eldora truck race and to experience great local short track racing on a different platform.
> starting off with Eldora, I mean what can I say, it’s the most prolific Dirt track in the USA if not the World. No bad seat in the house. Great Racing with every division or show that races an this years event was no different. For the past there years they’ve run a $2,000 to win Late Model race an this years race was as down to the wire as in can get. last lap last corner pass. And I have to say even the truck guess are starting to get use to the dirt because man did they put on one hell of a performance. I have to give a lot of respect to Tony and his staff at " The E." Great food and drinks at great prices and hell for a dirt track they have the cleanest bathrooms. I mean not one speck of dirt/mud can’t be found. And each and every one of the track staff members are knowledgable and friendly.
> next stop on my trip was Friday night at Moler Raceway Park. Little Dirt Bullring that puts on one hell of a show each and every FRIDAY night. Yes I said Friday night. The show this week was a makeup from the Ohio Buckeye Dirt Late Model Week. They had 30 Lates running for $3,000. They also had 29 UMP mods, 12 E/Sport Mods, and 13 crazy compacts. Only real problem I had with the track is they had only one Tow truck. During the Mod race 3 cars got together and 2 were no able to continue. It took 35mins to hook both of them and get back to racing. Felt like I was at the end of days/months at Hialeah. But all in all great side by side multiple lane racing at a small bullring. I can honestly say if Hendry County would move their tires back in the corners about 5 feet they would get the same kind of racing because Moler is set up just like Hendry. Also with this being a Friday Night there’s was about 5,000 people and standing room only.
> Round 2 this year at making a trip to ShadyBowl Raceway. Last year I was siting in the parking lot and they called it due to rain. But this year it consisted of Blue skies and 80 degree weather so race on. And I got lucky. It was a 110 lap memorial race. But here’s the problem. 2 1/2 hours away at Columbus Mortor speedway they were racing their Memorial race and they always get a boatload of cars. ( after searching for results is found they got 24). With 2 memorial races going on at the same time you would expect low car count and low payout. Not necessarily. ShadyBowl paid $2,000 to win and still had 14 lates. I mean that’s an avg race night at any track in Fla. But that’s not what draws me to this track. Their support divisions are the fan favorites. They were running Lates, mods, street stocks , crazy compacts and a tuner division. The lates had the least amount of cars. 24 street stocks 23 mods 17 crazy compacts and 15 tuners. And great racing by all the divisions.
In my opinion this track is straight out of a scene from field of dreams. It’s in the middle of the cornfields and the announcers tower looks like an old 2 story house. Looks like the house was there first and they built the track around it. Also this track lets you bring whatever you want to drink or eat. It was only $15 to get in for a big race. You can bring your lawn chairs and a cooler and sit up on the hill and be as close as you want to the action. Great track to visit if you are ever in the state. I can tell you that I will be returning.
My only question is this. I see it at all the tracks in Fla. If you have a big race and qualify each car, why do you run heat races? Why take their times to make them battle for different starting spots. Also something else yet did at Dhady Bowl is they qualified the lates, rolled the dice to invert them then ran heats. To me that’s a little much don’t you think?
Also for everyone that says Street Stocks are a dying breed because the Monte Carlos and Camaros and running them, up here it’s the opposite. At ShadyBowl theres only about 4/5 monte Carlos and maybe 2 Camaros. There’s actually a Ford Falcon ( which is very competitive) and it looked like a Dodge Duster ( I could be wrong). Also there’s about 2 Mecury Cougars and about 3 long bodied cutlasses. I would just go back for the support classes.
