Lancaster Tragedy & How To Pack A Dirt Track With A Carrot?

1. Another tragic shooting in Carolina dirt tracking

For the second summer in a row, dirt track racing in the Carolinas had to endure an at-track shooting. Saturday night (Aug. 26) saw a track security guard at the Lancaster Motor Speedway in South Carolina murdered for reportedly refusing entry to a man not wearing a track wristband. A suspect was arrested the next morning for the killing.

This is hardly a problem endemic to dirt track racing. Unfortunately, sports at all levels have had to endure violence in years of late, be it fighting in NFL grandstands or stabbings in MLB parking lots.

That doesn’t diminish how tragic Saturday night was at Lancaster. I’ve been to over 140 racetracks in this country and yes, be it as a fan or as a media member, I can’t count on all my fingers the amount of times I’ve had to deal with security or other track personnel pointing me the wrong direction or not understanding ticketing/credentialing at the track. That’s never grounds to raise a voice, much less fire a gun. 

Say a prayer for the victim’s family and say thank you to the next ticket taker you see at your local track. 

2. Eastern Storm tentpole closing for good

News broke over the weekend that Pennsylvania’s Grandview Speedway, a rare example of a NASCAR-sanctioned dirt track and a fixture racetrack of USAC’s annual Eastern Storm wingless sprint car mini series, has been sold to make room for an auto auction location and will soon cease to be a racetrack (note that a number of the Facebook posts providing more substantial information are part of groups and cannot be embedded here).

Well another race track closes after the 76er at Grandview speedway the track is closed it was sold to a big scrap yard

— Onthegas1p (@onthegas1p) August 29, 2022

Multiple sources have confirmed through social media that track personnel were in fact notified of the impending closure over the weekend.

This one comes as a bit of a shock. Grandview Speedway has proven healthy in terms of attendance and car count all season long, and its promoter was in fact instrumental in getting the Eastern Storm mini series established in Pennsylvania. 

But, no matter how successful a dirt track is, it remains a very low-margin, labor intensive means to make money. Cash offers for land are often hard for track owners to turn down.

Still, it’s tough to stomach that a track where the fan support was actually present still ended up closing anyhow.

3. A dirt racing…