ROSSBURG, Ohio – Eldora Speedway, the half-mile dirt track owned by NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart, will not be on next year’s Camping World Truck Series schedule.
Track general manager Roger Slack confirmed the news to Eldora ticketholders in a letter released on Wednesday afternoon.
READ: Eldora Speedway’s Letter To Patrons
“We had a great seven-year run that ushered in many firsts for NASCAR, namely heat races, last-chance qualifiers, four-wide salutes and stage racing,” Slack said in the letter. “Rising stars and dirt-racing specialists ensured we never had a repeat winner and that all winners came from various racing backgrounds, from dirt and asphalt to open wheel and stock cars.”
The Eldora Dirt Derby was held every year from 2013-19, putting it on the Truck Series schedule for seven consecutive seasons.
During that span, it was the lone NASCAR national series event to be held on a dirt surface. When Eldora joined the Truck Series calendar seven years ago, it marked the first NASCAR national series race on dirt since a 1970 NASCAR Cup Series race in Raleigh, N.C.
The Cup Series will return to dirt in March with an event at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, where dirt will put down on top of the concrete high banks for a points-paying race.
This year’s Dirt Derby was canceled due to mass gathering restrictions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, but past winners of the event include Austin Dillon (2013), Bubba Wallace (2014), Christopher Bell (2015), Kyle Larson (2016), Matt Crafton (2017), Chase Briscoe (2018) and Stewart Friesen (2019), who will go down as the final Dirt Derby victor.
The 2019 race marked Friesen’s first Truck Series win. He later earned a second series victory at Arizona’s Phoenix Raceway.