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Tracks: NAMARS Five Crown, The best in open wheel racing comes to Bloomington

14 August 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

(Bloomington, Ind.)--The South Central Building & Construction Trades Council takes pride in presenting this all open wheel racing program to Bloomington Speedway fans. In addition, members of the local unions involved can get half price tickets from their local.

Based on last year's series, the fans can expect to see record numbers of the finest midgets and non winged sprint cars around. Last year approximately 125 sprints and midgets participated in this program. NAMARS is an organization that is growing in size and in the quality of their events.

Although this event does not require pre-entry, we do have last year's experience to go on. Most of the top USAC midgets participated as well as virtually all of the NAMARS competitors. In addition, there is a pretty good number of midgets that campaigned in the USAC 16th Street Regional series that don't feel like they can afford to travel enough to follow the USAC national midget series or the tires and motors necessary to compete successfully on the pavement tracks that make up a large portion of the regular NAMARS shows.

This is the only midget show scheduled all season for Bloomington Speedway. Midget racers love to compete on the always well prepared red clay at Bloomington Speedway. Since there are no USAC midget races scheduled at the same time, it's a pretty fair bet that most of them will show up. The top finishing midgets at last year's five crown were Dave Darland, Tony Beaber, Matt Westfall, Steve Knepper, Tony Elliott, David Bridges, Tim Siner, Kevin Newton, Tim Spindler, and John Lucas. Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Tony George and his step-son, Ed Carpenter, also competed last season.

We always have a good field of sprint cars at Bloomington Speedway; but it should be even larger for this special show. In addition to the higher purse for this race, it is the last Pennzoil Cup points race of the season. Everybody will be attempting to optimize their position in the points. The top performing sprint cars from last year were piloted by Tony Elliott, Dave Darland, Kevin Briscoe, Kevin Doty, Bill Rose, Jay Drake, Brad Fox, Dick Gaines, Jr., Kevin Carmichael, and Kevin Miller.

The combination of sprints and midgets is the ideal show for our open wheel fans. In addition, their will be no qualifications. With the number of cars expected, we should have at least ten and maybe as many as a dozen heat races and several semis in addition to the two features. All of this racing will tax even a superbly prepared facility like Bloomington Speedway. We are not going to use up the track or your time with qualifications. In addition, a blind draw will often put some pretty good cars in the back of the field. All of this should make this program, again, one of the best shows of the year.

Grandstand admission for this special show will be only $15 while pit admission will be only $20. You will seldom see such good competition for so modest a price.

Text provided by Tim McKinney

Editors Note: To view hundreds of hot racing photos and art, visit The Racing Photo Museum and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.