In this era of stay-at-home orders and CDC guidelines, there hasn’t been any auto racing in the U.S. or anywhere else for that matter. This is usually the time of year when local tracks begin opening up for the season, but all those events have been postponed.
Except in South Dakota, one of the few states that hasn’t told its residents to stay home, despite a major COVID-19 outbreak at the Smithfield pork processing plant in Sioux Falls.
This weekend, a pair of dirt tracks in the state will be holding events, albeit with crowds limited to a certain number and other guidelines in place.
Is it wise? Probably not. Does it pique the interest of racing fans? Most certainly.
The International Motor Contest Association (IMCA), which bills itself as the oldest racing sanctioning body in the country, will be racing Saturday at Park Jefferson Speedway in North Sioux City and the next night at nearby Raceway Park.
Park Jefferson holds about 4,000 fans, but only 700 tickets were put on sale for the event, and all were sold out by Sunday. Raceway Park made 500 tickets available, and around 100 were left as of Tuesday, according to the Sioux City Journal.
“We have room enough to put 10 people together and skip rows to follow the CDC guidelines,” Denny Moore, a promoter for Raceway Park, told the Sioux City Journal. “Everyone that comes in the pits or the grandstands will have their temperatures checked and they all have to wear facemasks, whether it’s a bandana or a facemask. We will have a meeting on Sunday to make sure everyone follows the rules. If they don’t do these things or we see someone without a mask, we will warn them. The second time, we will eject them.”
Park Jefferson is instituting similar guidelines and limitations.
“We are doing a lot of stuff. Six feet in between, everyone come with masks or whatever you go to Walmart with. We will be handing out masks. There’s a limited menu with concessions and we are going to have markings on the floors of where to walk,” said Terry McCarl, racing promoter at Park Jefferson. “No tickets will be sold that day to lessen all interaction and we are sold out. We could easily get a lot of people in but we are following the guidelines.
“If you are at risk at all, please stay at home and watch it on pay-per-view and hopefully we can put on a good show for the folks.”
Park Jefferson’s Open Wheel Nationals will be streamed on a racing website for $29.99. The number of cars entered in the field has been limited to 32 in each division — 410 sprint cars and IMCA dirt modifieds. A full field in both divisions would be around 150 cars. The 410 sprint car feature will pay around $5,000 to win, and the IMCA winner will get $1,000. Former NASCAR Cup Series regulars Kenny Wallace and Ken Schrader are on the entry list.
Wallace, brother of 1989 Cup Series champion Rusty Wallace, retweeted links to the Sioux City Journal articles cited in this column.
Gov. Kristi Noem, who has been dead-set against issuing a statewide stay-at-home order, has advised race fans to stay away from the events.
“I’m going to strongly recommend to the people of South Dakota that they not go and that they stay home,” Noem said, according to ESPN.com, which cited ArgusLeader.com. “We’re asking that they be wise and smart to continue on the path and plan we’ve laid out for South Dakota for several more weeks.”
It’s a bit hypocritical for Noem — who did not know about the races until being told about them at a press conference Monday — to resist issuing a statewide lockdown yet dissuade people from attending the races, but it is a smart decision, in my opinion.
You can look at South Dakota not issuing a lockdown and say the tracks are merely exploiting that to their advantage. That may be true, but it is also irresponsible. It’s also a headline grab by these tracks that normally would have operated in obscurity outside the upper Midwest.
On the other hand, sports fans are eager to see something — anything — that scratches their itch. A pair of events in the Midwest, where dirt racing is king, will likely draw more interest than usual.
“We intend to go overboard on following CDC guidelines,” Park Jefferson Speedway owner Adam Adamson told the Argus Leader. “We’re just a small race track in rural South Dakota trying to give some entertainment and a little bit of a break from some of this madness that’s going on right now. We think we can do so in a safe environment.”
If one of our regional tracks in New England were to do the same, there would be the same reactions, both positive and negative. As it stands right now, the Connecticut tracks are looking to open in late April or early May, and Monadnock Speedway has a May 9 opening set.
With Massachusetts making the decision earlier this week to close schools for the rest of the year, it seems as though those races in neighboring states could be rescheduled again.
We all want to see live racing at our local tracks this year. We just need to be patient and not risk the health of fans and competitors alike.
Jason Remillard is a copy editor and page designer at the Recorder. He can be reached at jremillard@recorder.com and followed on Twitter @racinwithjason