Amen👍 But I also think Iowa was another cookie cutter track with no unique features. Doomed for failure from the start.
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Take a bow, Mark. Yet again you presented the facts and commons sense in a clear and superb manner.
Mark and I have watched the likes of Ascot, Manzy, the Sacramento Mile, The Indiana State Fairgrounds Mile, The Missouri State Fairgrounds mile, the New York State Fairgrounds Mile, the Iowa State Fairgrounds 1/2 mile, the Minnesota State Fairgrounds 1/2 mile, Rockingham, North Wilkesboro, Ontario Motor Speedway, Texas World Speedway, Flemington, NJ all go away forever, and that's just the tracks that I can name off the top of my pointy little head!! LOL!
That's not counting the hundreds of bull rings that have disappeared that are way, way too numerous to mention.
No true race fan is indifferent to a track being closed and watch it disappear forever.
I went to Chicago Motor Speedway to see CART race in 1999. It was the first race at the place and it was packed. I went back for the ASA/Midget and Nascar trucks races and the crowd kept getting smaller. As you said, the neighbors didn't want it and it closed up after about 4-5 years and there is a Home Depot there now.
I'm not going to support a track just because it's a race track. A facility that puts on a consistently poor show isn't going to benefit the sport. All those tracks do is chase away potential fans because they chose the wrong track to go to for their first experience.
Iowa Speedway isn't grass roots racing, anyway. They run a handful of professional races a year and then sits dormant for the rest of the year.
I'm also not sad when a poorly managed dirt track shuts down. That just means likelier even better car counts at the tracks that put on a better show.
Post number 25, wow, just boggles the nogin" on that viewpoint. Nice attitude sir. Very disappointing.
Late Model Mark
Talladega Short Track Announcer
I agree with post 25, not gonna Support poor racing. Good track know how to get you to come back. See I 80, Cedar Lake, Fairbury.
A race track doesn't bring down the national economy when it fails. The companies that were bailed out in 2008 should have been broken up. Too big to fail means too big to exist. TARP wasn't the mistake. The mistake was not punishing after the fall stopped.
Iowa just never had any sex appeal
It's one thing to cheer on the fact that a poorly operated business, in this case a race track business, failed and went away. That could be seen as a proper response, a harsh one, but comprehensible, nonetheless. It's a whole other thing to wish for, and cheer that a racetrack facility should be razed and disposed of because you had the misfortune to attended a racing event that wasn't up to your lofty standards, whatever those are. Anyone who wishes for, and takes satisfaction in seeing a racetrack of any kind, of any form of racing be torn down and done away with isn't really a fan. You may call yourself a race fan but you're not. There's other words to describe those kinds of folks but we'll leave that to everyone's imagination.
I saw as many entertaining and exciting events at Iowa as I saw bad ones. If the division of cars isn't your particular cup of tea, or if the surface isn't to your liking that is understandable and in the eye of the beholder. But, to say a track isn't worthy of it's own existence because you experienced an event that was not to your liking is rather childish, don't you think?
I do believe Kansas is worse than Iowa. I thought Iowa would outlast that bore fest of a track.
Biggest SLM race in NW was the Montana 200. Tiny 13 sec 1/4 mile. A lil bigger than slinger. Closed.
I attended at least 7 or 8 events at Iowa and at least half of them were above average in regards to entertainment value for the dollar spent.
Could it be that in your infinite wisdom you had preconceived notions as to the entertainment value of the events you attended? One could easily get that impression. My first trip to Knoxville, the place you tout as being far superior to Iowa, was for a 2 night USAC National Sprint Car race that was a huge disappointment. Also, I've been regularly attending events on the "hallowed grounds" of FALS, as it's been christened in recent years, for over 2 decades and there have been literally a couple of dozen shows there that I recall that were "snoozers". I have 2 very close friends who traveled 600 to 700 miles one way on my recommendations only to find they'd unluckily picked a couple of FALS' "snoozers". Using your short sighted theory I should hope Knoxville gets a direct hit by a category 4 tornado and my friends should hope for, and cheer for FALS to suffer the same fate and be destroyed. My experience at Knoxville and those two shows at FALS are the only frame of reference we have. Sound familiar?
By all means don't shed any tears over this, but try just a teeny bit harder not to be a fool.