Illinois Lightning Sprint Series Adds Race At Fairbury

From the ILSS facebook page...

"The ILSS has secured another date for the 2014 schedule. For the 1st time in the history for the series they will be making their 1st ever appearance on Sat Night Aug 2nd at the legendary Fairbury American Legion Speedway in Fairbury IL. The super fast 1/4 mi banked dirt oval will have open wheel racing for the 1st time at the facility in a few years. Series President Roger Sollenberger is very excited to be able to bring the lightning sprint group to one of the Midwest premier dirt ovals. Thanks to Matt Curl for your work getting the lightning sprints to come to Fairbury American Legion Speedway. This race will be a winged event."

Will this ILSS race be in addition to the late models and the other 4 or 5 support classes? If they don't run the ILSS cars in addition to at least the late models there won't be anyone in the grandstands. Fairbury is pure tunnel vision late model/e-mod territory and the weekly fan at Fairbury won't bother to walk across the street for any open wheel show regardless how good it is. Sad but true.

Hey that's fair enough, everyone has their favorites. I am not fully aware of the situation, but I can say with confidence that this likely isn't going to have much of an effect on the weekly classes, if any effect at all for that matter. I say that because the ILSS has always played a role as a support class. We run various tracks and bring in enough pit passes to help financially benefit the bigger car classes. The ILSS races at tracks such as Peoria, Macon, Lincoln & LaSalle, and a lot of our members are especially psyched up to have the chance to race at this great facility. Hopefully we bring a lot of cars and put on a good show.

Ricky, I'm one who would love to see an open wheel division get a foothold at a place like Fairbury. Variety is always good. I was just wondering if the tracks would add the ILSS to the class lineup, which is already overloaded or, on the nights ILSS are in action at Fairbury, would a couple of the regular support classes be idle on those nights.

Given the support class status of the ILSS that would be a great opportunity to expose some of the dyed in the wool late model and e-mod fandom to the great racing and excitement of the ILSS. Fairbury has tried to schedule both national midget stand alone and some regional wingless sprint shows with the late models in years past with dismal fan support.

I really hope you didn't interpret that I was somehow knocking the ILSS being at a late model track like Fairbury because that wasn't my intention. We're really excited that you guys will be running some races close to us.

To those interested, Fairbury American Legion Speedway has now released their 2014 schedule and they have this night listed as regular classes plus ILSS. CIRF, absolutely no offense taken at all, you're just being realistic.