The motorsports history at the Iowa State Fairgrounds dirt track, which dated back to 1907, came to an abrupt end this week when the fair board announced that all racing activities in the future would cease on the half-mile dirt track, a decision that was reported in the Des Moines Register. No reason was given, but racing sources in Iowa told us that talk about ceasing racing at the fairgrounds had been in the air for years, and reflects the ongoing budgetary pressures on fair boards throughout the United States to make their grounds consistently profitable.
Located on 30th Street east of downtown Des Moines, the state capital, the fairgrounds were first built in 1886. During the automotive age, it hosted IMCA Sprint cars on a regular basis from 1915 through 1977. It’s the second state fair site in as many years to announce an end to auto racing, as state officials in New York pulled the plug on motorsports at the state fairgrounds in Syracuse last year, which had long hosted Super DIRT Week for stock cars, citing a wish to turn the historic mile dirt track into a year-round equestrian center. That event is now moving, at least on a temporary basis, to Oswego Speedway on the shore of Lake Ontario.
The Iowa fairgrounds racing had been promoted of late by Tony Moro, a former Sprint car driver, who presented a weekly program based on 305 Sprints and Late Models. One source predicted the fair board’s move means racing in Des Moines is “at the end of the line, just like Syracuse.”
from Hemmings Daily – News for the collector car enthusiast http://ift.tt/2dCesKU
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