USAC Midgets At Springfield

[CIRF]

Just read where the USAC National Midgets will having an event at the Illinois State Fairgrounds next July 3rd. This is great news since Central Illinois hasn't hosted a USAC midget race in quite some time.

Way to go Levi!! Hopefully this will go over big and we can have more than one show at the fairgrounds!!

[FourDeepInTheFluff]

Surely this is not at the mile? Do they have a smaller track on the grounds?

[CIRF]

FourDeep, the track that the midgets will race on will be built in what is known as The Arena. It is an open air area on the Illinois State Fairgrounds with a covered grandstand where they have the national high school rodeo championships. They also have truck and tractor pulls, monster trucks and demo derby's during the Illinois state fair at the Arena.

When the motorcycles race on The Mile over Memorial Day Weekend they build a smaller track in the Arena area and race on it at night since the Arena has lights. The motorcycles racing on the small track are a different type of machine than what they race on The Mile but it's in conjunction with the races on The Mile. The motorcycle track is pretty much completely flat. I'm going to guess that the midget track they'll build will have some banking to it but it remains to be seen just how much.

The midgets have actually raced on The Springfield Mile. Way back in the 1990's they raced the USAC National midgets on The Springfield Mile during the State Fair. They ran a 25 mile midget A-main on the mile as kind of a support class just before the Tony Bettenhausen Memorial 100 USAC Silver Crown race. I think they called the midget race at The Mile the Rex Easton Memorial. Danny Drinan was nearly killed in a midget due to a terrible crash at the entrance to turn #3 during the Easton Memorial on The Springfield Mile back in the 90's. USAC ran the midgets on The Mile one more year after Drinan's horrific crash. USAC decided that The Mile was just too big and too fast for the little cars, and they were right.