More than a dozen teams still look to tame the 2020 National Tour of the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series presented by the MAVTV Motorsports Network.
The experiment has entered its 29th year of action and, while the season took off with roaring numbers of teams and fans, the current state of affairs has seemingly brought the entire show to a halt as the world figures out how to deal with COVID-19.
While that has put the brakes on racing, for now, that hasn‘t put the hopes of teams and fans in the dumps as more than a dozen teams still look to tame the 2020 National Tour of the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series presented by the MAVTV Motorsports Network.
“It‘s going to be an interesting season, to say the least,” said ASCS National Director Matt Ward. “The first four shows of the year, we had huge car counts in Arizona and California. Our lowest was 48 cars, so the season is definitely off to a strong start. We just have a bump in the road to deal with.”
With several of the events affected by the COVID-19 pandemic looking for dates to reschedule, teams and fans are still in store for a full season of racing once the wheels get rolling again.
In the overall scope of the American Sprint Car Series, the 2020 season is comprised of 10 separate tours, with the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series presented by the MAVTV Motorsports Network representing the top tier of the tours.
This article will focus on that series.
Debuting a slate of 50 events during the Performance Racing Industries trade show in 2019, the tour presented several new challenging tracks, as well as several returning to the lineup after being gone for nearly 10 years.
Among the events that line the 2020 National Tour lineup, several large-scale events are a part of the coming season. The 11 Oaks Farms Battle of the Groves returns for the third year at Williams Grove Speedway and Selinsgrove Speedway on Friday, May 1 and Saturday, May 2.
That is followed quickly by I-96 Speedway‘s Great Lakes Sprint Car Nationals with the Great Lakes Super Sprints (GLSS) on Friday, May 8 and Saturday, May 9.
The Brownfield Classic returns at Grays Harbor Raceway on Friday, June 19 and Saturday, June 20 leading into to the $15,000-to-win Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup at Skagit Speedway on June 25-27.
The 30th annual My Place Hotels ASCS 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank offers another $15,000 payday, with races going from Thursday, Aug. 6 through Saturday, Aug. 8.
The third five-figure payday on the season, the Hockett/McMillin Memorial, runs Sept. 17-19 with a $10,000 top prize on the line.
Offering teams one more shot at a large payday, I-30 Speedway‘s COMP Cams Short Track Nationals presented by Hoosier Tire makes the long-awaited return to the National Tour lineup with a $10,041 top prize.
“One of the goals this year was to bring back some of the tracks that had been missing and still be able to expand the lineup,” noted Terry Mattox, who coordinates ASCS scheduling. “Getting back to Arizona and California at the start of the season is something we‘ve been working on for several years, plus getting tracks like Tri-City Speedway, I-80, and the Short Track Nationals were some of the biggest goals when we started laying the season out last year.”
Among tracks that have long been absent from the tour included the 2020 season-opening event at Canyon Speedway Park, which had not seen the National Tour since 2012.
Gathering 51 drivers from 15 states and a trio of countries, the turnout was the highest the series has seen in the state of Arizona.