Many college students do not have the attention span necessary to watch an entire NASCAR race.
Last Saturday night, I experienced something very different; dirt racing so fast, I was hit in the face with dirt 15 rows up.
A friend of mine, junior Brandon Ward, is an intern for the ASA (American Speed Association), at East Bay Raceway in Tampa, which is a motorsport, and he got us tickets and pit passes to a night of racing.
I’m a huge sports fan, but racing has never been my thing. However, going down to the Raceway was unlike any sporting event I’ve ever attended.
The dirt track is only one-third of a mile long, and it takes the race-cars about 15 seconds to get around it, at ridiculous angles. Some of these cars have up to 750 horsepower, and manage to reach high speeds, even with such a short track.
“Sprint models probably touch about 110 and late models around 100,” said Ward. “I think it would appeal to college kids mainly because it’s fast paced and different from mainstream sports.
“It seems more fan interactive simply because of proximity and the atmosphere.”
As far as fan interaction goes, for $25 fans can actually race against each other in one lap around the track during intermission. I got to see a station wagon beat a minivan, an old Firebird stall and a pickup truck come in first place; the people watching was very appealing.
“The only similarity to NASCAR is car control and horsepower,” said Ward. “Dirt cars have no spotters or mirrors or big time sponsors, and they do it more out of the joy of it rather than for money.”
The sprint cars didn’t even have a starter switch. In order to go, they had to be given a push start.
I was fortunate enough to watch the races up in the press box, next to the announcers and Vice President of East Bay Raceway Todd Hutto.
“College kids will like it because of the price and it’s something different,” said Hutto. “There’s more interaction when you’re here…and there’s beer.”
From what I saw, it takes a lot more skill to race on dirt, on a lap that is a fraction of the size of a NASCAR track. It was amazing to watch these drivers speed up for a few seconds, and then have to slow down and time the turns right.
There were a lot of angles to deal with, and the drivers had to be so precise. On top of this, two different drivers got their cars wrecked because of collisions, and both proceeded to get out of their vehicles and point and shout at the drivers who hit them.
The drivers all own their own cars, and worked on them themselves. Prior to the races starting, I was able to go behind the track and check out all of the cars. Each car had two to three people around it, making slight alterations to their cars, with no crew. The drivers were the ones who knew everything about their cars, and they knew exactly what they were doing.
Out of all the different races, the sprint cars were my favorite. Those went the fastest, were the loudest and were the only models that sprayed dirt at everyone.
Halfway through the sprint car race, one of the cars tried to take the inside and speed up, causing a six car pileup, and one of the drivers was immediately sent out on an ambulance. I definitely got my $7 worth.
John Hilsenroth can be reached at jhilsenroth@spartans.ut.edu.