ROSSBURG, Ohio — This week’s Friday Morning Heat Race generates from Ohio’s Eldora Speedway, where we were on hand for the Eldora Million on Thursday night.
Hot Laps: The Same, But Different
Ohio’s Eldora Speedway sure has changed since our last visit here more than 10 years ago, but it so many ways it’s still the same old Eldora.
While it has a little more polish and glamour and things are a lot cleaner than they once were, it still has an amazing charm to it. Driving through the farmland of western Ohio, Eldora still pops up out of nowhere and the race track remains — as it’s always been — bad to the bone.
Qualifying: Mountain View
Here’s wishing a great weekend to the fans and racers gathering at Colorado’s Bandimere Speedway for what appears to be the final NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series at the track that will be sold after the season.
Dragsters have thundered on the mountain for 43 years.
First Heat: Back Up The Truck
Eldora Speedway General Manager Jerry Gappens said, he inquired about a Brinks truck to deliver the winner’s loot but was told it would cost more than $40,000. Instead, track officials opted for a nifty banner titled “The Bank of Eldora,” which portrayed the load of money that went to Thursday’s winner, which cost “approximately $1,500.”
Second Heat: Where Did The Time Go?
Difficult to believe that seven-time Cup Series champion driver and and crew chief Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus have been nominated for the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Seems like yesterday, the duo was unbeatable on the race track. Now, one is racing part time and the other is an executive.
Third Heat: It’s Bizarre
The departure of Anthony Macri from his family-owned sprint car team on the eve of the Eldora Million is one of the oddest occurrences in some time. The story will be an interesting one, when it comes out.
For now, no one with the team or Macri are providing any details of what transpired. Macri was offered other rides and turned them down and Hall of Famer Lance Dewease wheeled the Macri Motorsports No. 39m during the Eldora Million.
Fourth Heat: Where’s The Phone Booth?
When I attended my first King’s Royal as a media member in 1994, all of the media in attendance could have met in a phone booth. At Thursday’s Eldora Million, a mandatory media meeting was held with more than 100 in attendance.
Maybe some of them will stop calling sprint car racing “amateur racing.”
Dash: Prediction
Alex Palou will not win his fourth consecutive NTT IndyCar Series race on Sunday at Toronto’s Exhibition Place.
B Main: Watch Closely
Sports car champion Tom Blomqvist is getting an audition this weekend.
Blomqvist, who co-drove the Meyer Shank Racing Acura GTP car to victory in last weekend’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, will wheel one of the team’s Indy cars at this weekend’s Honda Indy Toronto, replacing injured driver Simon Pagenaud.
With Pagenaud and the team’s other driver, Helio Castroneves, both in the latter stages of their careers, it may be a first look of things to come.
Feature: Popular Winner
It seems somewhat rare when extreme good fortune comes to those who have their noses to the grindstone day-in and day-out, but the sprint car racing world saw that unfold before their eyes shortly before 1 a.m. Friday morning.
Logan Schuchart, Bobby Allen and Shark Racing turned in a dominant performance to win the Eldora Million, which gave the team a $1,002,023 payday. That’s something for a team that, in its early days, literally scraped money from under the seats to get from track to track to follow the dream of racing with the World of Outlaws.
Schuchart led all 50 laps and the standing-room-only crowd at Eldora Speedway cheered loudly and robustly. It was a storybook ending to the highest paying sprint car race in history.
The Dash: Bobby’s Reward
Maybe the best part of the Eldora Million was Bobby Allen’s smile in victory lane. The sprint car racing Hall of Famer has dedicated his life to the sport, and his golden years to putting good race cars under his grandson, Logan Schuchart, and his son, Jacob Allen.
Winning the Eldora Million was the ultimate reward.