Black Hills Speedway, Rapid City, SD, June 8 2007 2007 June 20
After spending the afternoon visiting Mt. Rushmore, Wind Cave, and Custer State Park, I went to Black Hills Speedway. Mt.Rushmore was pretty neat and it is amazing they where able to do what the did carving into the mountain with the tools they had. Custer State Park was really nice because they had different types of wildlife. There was buffalo, wild mules, prairie dogs, pronghorns, turkeys, and big horn sheep. They were all neat to see, especially the big horn sheep. Wind cave is currently ranked as the 3′rd or 4′th longest cave in the world. However, they are still mapping it out, so it may eventually move into 2nd place. The tour of the cave was very interesting. If you are going to go, you might want to look into some of the special tours where you can tour the cave the way people did in the old times, versus the nice walkways they have on the normal tours. Anyway, to the race…
Black Hills Speedway is currently a 3/8 mile semi-banked dirt track. It used to be a big half mile but wa shortened about four or five years ago (or so I was told). The old track was still very much visible and it looked like it would have been super-fast. The shorter track, while not having the same tiop speeds, was condifured in such a way that allowed for good racing. The car counts in the Wissota modifieds and late models where disappointing. The late models had about seven cars competing an the modifieds only three. There was no explanation offered by the announcer for the low late model count except for that “they used to get a lot more of them.” The modifieds, on the other hand, where low because most of the regulars went to a big race in Wyoming. Two of the three modified drivers that showed up put there kids in the car, and the daughter of one of the drivers easily wining the three car feature. The son of another driver flipped. The third car was a B-modified, which I assume had the regular driver, but was underpowered by the faster A-modifieds. There was also some sprint cars racing and they put on a good show ut the field wasn’t too big either. All-in-all the track was nice. I would have liked to see more cars, but it was enjoyable none-the-less. On the thing that I didn’t sample at the Speedway that I would have if I arrived earlier is they have a restaurant above the main grand stands that has a full bar and sells prime rib. If you ever go there and eat, let me know how it is!
My 2007 race stats after visiting Black Hills Speedway on June 8 are:
Races: 17
Tracks: 12 (8 new) (158 lifetime)
States: 11 (5 new) (40 lifetime)