Gas City I-69 Speedway, Friday August 19, 2005 2005 August 21
On Friday night, August 19 it was on to Gas City I-69 Speedway for the second night of USAC Indiana Midget week. Like Lawrenceburg, also on tap were the weekly traditional sprints. Before heading to the track I went to the Indiana State Fair. I’m a big fan of state fairs. Well, at least good ones like they have in the Midwest.
The fair was nice and I did a lot of walking around looking at the exhibits and farm animals. The pygmy and alpine goats were adorable. I think if I ever acquired a farm animal it would be a goat. They are pretty cool, don’t take up a lot of space, and they provide tasty milk. While walking around the fair I went into the sheep barn. Right inside of the sheep barn was the sheep association’s food stand. For some reason it just seemed wrong to be cooking and eating lamb chops about 10 feet from momma-sheep so I passed on eating lamb. Instead, I had a great rib-eye steak dinner that I got from the cattle-man’s association for lunch. They were smart enough to cook the cows on the other side of the fairgrounds so it didn’t seem so cruel. While waiting on a table basically made of plywood and off of plastic plates with plastic utensils may not be romantic, the food was as good as you’d get at a fancy steak house. For desert I purchased some locally made honey ice cream that was delicious.
After enjoying the fair, I headed up to Gas City. I was warned it might be crowded so I got there a little earlier then I otherwise would have. I managed to find place on for one person on the top row to sit and then went down below to do some “bench racing” while waiting for the races. One of the great things about going to the races are some of the wonderful people from such diverse backgrounds. One minute you could be talking to a down-on-his-luck unemployed truck driver and the next minute you could be chatting with a multi-millionaire. While I don’t think I talked to any of these types of people today, I have in the past. Anyway, I had a great time talking to people including the track minister, an antique dealer, a retired racer, and a few others.
The midget races were better at Gas City then the night before at Lawrenceburg. Despite having a different winner, it was the same car as the night before. Davey Ray took the win in the car Jay Drake normally drives. Drake was in Colorado for the Infiniti Pro Series race so he had to skip this event. The sprint car feature, on the other hand, was filled with cautions. I think they actually cut it short without telling anyone, a thought that at least one midget driver (Darren Jenkins from Australia) who I talked to in the pits afterwards agreed with. Anyway, it was still a real lot of fun watching midgets and sprint cars without airplane parts on top of them and I had a great time, and saw another new track.
My stats for the year after the August 19 show at Gas City I-69:
Races: 35
Tracks: 22 (12 new)
States: 14 (3 new)