Red River Valley Speedway, July 22
On Friday July 22 I flew from Newark, NJ to Sioux City, Iowa and then drove about 6 hours to Red River Valley Speedway in West Fargo, North Dakota to see a regular weekly race at the track. This was my first ever race at the track, and the first time I was ever in the state of North Dakota.
The drive to the track was uneventful, but if you ever drive in South Dakota, make sure you slow down for construction zones. I saw a number of people pulled over for speeding in construction areas. Actually, you should always slow down in construction zones for safety reasons, but that is another post for another day.
Anyway, I checked into a run down motel across the street from the track and got a room for something like $23.00. The motel was one of those places they rent rooms weekly and monthly, so you know it was nothing fancy, but the room was clean and it cable TV and the staff was friendly so it was OK for me.
After checking into the room I went to the track. The first thing that caught my eye was how big the stands were. The track is beautiful and has a lot of seating. The track itself is very wide and allowed for three and four wide racing. The show consisted of various Wissota sanctioned racing classes including modifieds (similar to IMCA modifieds), street stocks and 360 winged sprints. The overall car count was good, but i would have liked to see more sprint cars. The racing show was entertaining, started on time, and was ran off efficiently and the races were over by about 10:00 PM. I would definitely go to this track again, however I’d probably try to get to a special show like when the World of Outlaw Late Models or Sprints are there. The people who run this track do a great job and were rewarded with a huge crowd paying $12 a piece to get in and watch the races. Some short track promoters make excuses why the fans are down, but many of them need to look in the mirror because tracks like Red River prove if you run a good, efficient, entertaining show, you can get fans in the stands.
My 2005 racing stats after the July22′nd race at Red River Valley:
Races: 26
Tracks: 16 (7 new)
States: 11 (1 new)