If I was giving the Gateway Dirt Nationals a letter grade...........

[Punisher88]

I was there and raced on it in my lm. I qualified 53rd out orb97 and was in a transfer to the back main til a yuke tire knocked me out. (Turns out when your not used to yuke tires they can cause you a few issues. Lol) anyways Thursday I was seriously skeptical. I think they just kept working it too much and the consistency of the dirt is just so fluffy and soft it needs to be left alone more. So Friday and Saturday they didn't work it nearly as much and the racing and track was much better. I think Saturday would have been as good as Friday had they not prepped it before the feature as heavily. For them having to deal with all the co2 level issues and finally getting that figured out I think it turned out pretty great. They were dealing with alot more than just race cars. They had EPA up their busts all weekend which cause tons of downtime for co2 levels, which they adjusted to later Thursday night and we're able to run the second half of qualifying MUCH more smoothly. One big improvement I'd like to see is having the jersey barriers all the way around the infielday with and entrance and exit in the middle so cars could still pull off easily. Or put a dirt berm through the inside of the corner would be best and would have saved me a few dollars. Lol

[Krooser]

From what I can see it certainly was better than the deal at the Silverdome in the 80's...

[ptown]

To grow this event new or casual fans must help fill the building. Question? Did this event succeed to that end?

No way will you keep a casual fan there for 8 hours.

[calverton]

yes cry baby some things need to change and things could be prevented like the EPA sniffing how about a road trip just from the pits to the entrance to the track

[SHOE32]

A+ for effort and giving us racing to watch till Arizona.

[TBone15]

I was there Saturday night. It wasn't bad.... probably a B. It was more entertaining than anything the Rams did there in the last ten years.

[modfan24]

The massive undertaking this event required has never been seen before in stock car racing.

It's like in high school when the kid with the mansion was convinced to have a house party while his parents were out of town. We came, we partied, we raced, we got dirt everywhere. Now we go back to our normal hangouts until next year. As we walk away we look around at the dirty foot prints up and down the multi-million dollar convention center and think about how bad it will suck to clean up.

Sure the chilli bowl pretty much has it down to a science. But they've had many years to master their product and started in a more favorable era. The EPA is the tightest it's ever been. Fire marshalls, union reps, big city council members all looking over your shoulder. From all the mandated dome employees to security. Just trying to manage everyone would be insane.

[modfan24]

My only complaint is RC Cola. Who the hell drinks that? Haha

If nothing else, this event has set the record for having:
1. The most bathrooms. I never seen a line.
2. No hot and smelly port-a-pots.
3. The Most beer and concession stands.
4. Raced while experiencing large amounts of rain/ice/snow

Those are things I see people complain about on 4m. So that's good

[Clayton_Wetter]

gates should 've been opened earlier also

Well there you are complaining yet again!!!

[turnleftandgasit]

Instead of mods, work with the Midget promoter (they are already at Du quoin ) to have them come in. We thought less track wear, and could make it a huge lead up too the chili bowl.
Formulate a point system for the 2017 DLM season , and invite the top ????? No idea on how many midgets to invite, as I have only seen them once at FALS, and can't wait to see more of them.
3-2-1 attack

[turnleftandgasit]

I think the Italian family across the street will have an issue with a 50/50.

[calverton]

Well there you are complaining yet again!!!

you think there might have been safety concerns the way it was ran oh wait you wouldn't know you were not there

[plunks7]

Instead of mods, work with the Midget promoter (they are already at Du quoin ) to have them come in. We thought less track wear, and could make it a huge lead up too the chili bowl.
Formulate a point system for the 2017 DLM season , and invite the top ????? No idea on how many midgets to invite, as I have only seen them once at FALS, and can't wait to see more of them.
3-2-1 attack

If they do that I'm out. JMO

Run just lates, 2 heat races with passing points. NO Freaking time trials.

[fryefan]

I mainly attend late model shows, but I also attend several sprint, midget, and USMTS shows. Of those, the midgets provide excellent racing more consistently than the other classes.

Midgets and late models would be a great combination.

With that being said, I like watching the modifieds and I am okay with them staying. If they do, then they should make it an invitational event for them and limit the number of cars to no more than 60 max.

[powerslide]

Push the wall out right where the corner ends so the topside timmy's can get better runs. It was just about a foot to tight to get that top really moving. Get rid of the track wetter crap from VP, every track that has tried it has the rough issues that i know about. More track equipment like the chili bowl, i think they have a smaller tractor/tiller that doesn't cut it so deep.

I didn't make it Thursday but it looked painful on TV, drove from Tulsa Ok with that crap weather and was about 3hrs late Friday. I was really expecting more of the same 3am ending time but they really turned it around #timemanagement

Announcing crew did an awesome job, Dustin lost his voice by Saturday thats why Ben seemed so much louder.
Bathroom lines were awesome, 10x better than the chili bowl.
Beer ran out a couple times saw a couple dudes get pretty bent about that lol.

Overall B- mainly for the pole sitter winning Saturday unchallenged and the time drag on Thursday. Awesome feature race on Friday. Mod feature Saturday was action packed as well