A Capital Failure Or Ahead Of Its Time?

*This is a part of a Youtube series. Do not set the article live but edit the bold parts of the article. Thank You -Jared*

With NASCAR trying to reinvent itself with the Next Gen car, street racing may be on the horizon. My colleagues at Frontstretch and fans across the country have debated the idea of street racing. However, this is not a debate video but reminding you street racing in stock cars has already happened, an unknown race in a major city that was not broadcasted to a TV network. In 1994, the ARCA Menards Series ran a street course for one year in Iowa. Hear the history of the track and those stories at that race weekend from the crew members and drivers themselves in this deep dive.

NASCAR is no stranger to the Hawkeye state. The Truck Series runs on the dirt track in Knoxville, Iowa. The Rusty Wallace-built Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa hosts races this year for ARCA and Indycar and used to have the Xfinity and Truck Series racing there. Sitting 35 minutes away from Iowa Speedway, Des Moines is the capital and most populous city of Iowa.

ARCA was not the first series to race on the streets of Des Moines.

There is footage on Youtube of the Oldsmobile Pro Series that ran the streets in 1993. All you need to know about the series is that Mike Borkowski, who had a lackluster NASCAR career, was leading the points during that stage of the season.

The Trans Am Series ran on the roads of Des Moines from 1989 to 1992. In 1993, Trans Am was scheduled to race at Des Moines. Already in a flood stage during race weekend, heavy thunderstorms on the Thursday before the race dumped over six inches of rain to an already rainy summer season. Massive flooding from the Des Moines river washed out bridges on the track that would have been flooded. The race was canceled and never made up on the Trans Am schedule.

Trans Am did return to Des Moines for the 1994 season and this time, it was a doubleheader with ARCA on 4th of July weekend. ARCA ran on Sunday while Trans Am ran on Monday, July 4th.

I’m no expert in designing street courses, but the layout intrigues me as it runs through the important parts of Des Moines.

Drivers would start on Crocker Street heading west and turning left into turn one. Inside turns one and two is the Veterans Memorial auditorium. The auditorium has some special history of its own with Ozzy Osbourne biting off the head of a bat in 1982.

After turn two, drivers would make a left onto Park Street before turn three which…