Long before he ever donned a fire suit and helmet, Terry McCarl had visions of organizing and promoting sprint car races.
“Prior to the internet, SPEED SPORT and Hawkeye Racing News were how the promoters let the drivers and teams know what they had going on,” McCarl reminisced. “They would run an ad that included the payoff and that type of thing. When I was a little boy, I would read all of those ads and make up my own payoffs, thinking of ways I could get the drivers paid better and put on a better show.
“Then, I started working at skating rinks as a teenager, and I was involved with promoting the rink and putting on parties. My wife’s family, her dad had different restaurants, a car lot, those types of things. So she kind of has that promoter’s mentality, too.”
A simple discussion in August 1995 sparked an idea that led to the annual Front Row Challenge at Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, Iowa.
“One day, I was sitting around with Bob Berryhill, right before the Knoxville Nationals, and he was like, ‘Man, I’m bored. We need a race,’” McCarl recalled. “It used to be just the Saturday night before the Nationals, and there was nothing Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. I said, ‘We should put on a race,’ and I thought of Southern Iowa Speedway in Osky; my dad raced there a few times through the years and it’s only 25 miles away.
“The Monday after the Nationals, my wife — I’m not very good at following up on things — immediately called the track and talked about us promoting a race. My friend and sponsor at the time, Bill McCroskey, became my partner – and it all went from there.”
The Front Row Challenge has been a fixture on the sprint car racing calendar since 1996. This year’s edition is set for Monday night, Aug. 7.
“My wife does all the hard work. I do the race track side of the fence and she does the grandstand side of the fence,” McCarl noted. “I think we’ve brought a lot of different, cool ideas into this sport that have been copied by a lot of people.
“Sprint car racing is really taking off. The purses are finally going up to where they should be and I think we had a little bit to do with that. We showed that you can put on an unsanctioned Monday night event, an unsanctioned Tuesday night event and make it work and pay good money.
“I enjoy promoting and I look forward to doing more events. They just have to be at the right place at the right time — something I think will work properly,” McCarl concluded. – Keith Waltz
This story appeared in the July 26, 2023 edition of the SPEED SPORT Insider.
