USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

Bacon wins

Windom
KTJ
Sunshine
Grant

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

6 heats c, b main. A track big enough to race on. That is what sprint car racing is about. Great show.

Did they get a good crowd?

I would say the crowd was good, but it’s hard to tell the place is so big. Now I realize when I was watching the late models on MAVTV from there, why it looked empty. it seems to me like you could have 5000 and look sparse. Anyone know how many they seat?

Including the backstretch the total capacity there is In the low 20 thousands. They widened seats before last years nationals and lost some capacity. It was a sell out on Saturday night last year.

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

Seats over 24,000

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

Sold out, and every one of us saw a hell of a race.

We had a great time last night and the racing was awesome. A lot of tight battles and massive slide jobs. I was impressed as a first time spectator at Knoxville. We are looking forward to another fantastic night of racing and spending time with our racing families.

I THINK that they said during the 2018 Knoxville Nationals that the front stretch stands seat about 14,000 and the backstretch seats about 9,000. This does not include all the suites. During the Saturday sellout at last year’s Nationals, the number being mentioned most often was 25,000+.

With the seat widening project they lost about 2500 seats so the capacity is about 21k, not including the hall of fame and Clauson suites.

We’re having a great time also, hanging with Oppweld, Brent and got to meet Duel, a great weekend continues!

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

Ok what western movie is that theme song from??

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

The song is The Ecstasy of Gold, from the movie The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

Figured it out, but it was driving me crazy. Thanks

I know we are not allowed to say anything bad anymore but some reality should be interjected for those that have actually seen good non-wing sprint car racing there in the past.
1. The track prep is obviously done for the wing cars. "Sprints on skates"
2. Winged hot laps followed by winged time trials took the first hour so a non-wing car didn't hit the track until 8pm when it was kinda used up.
3. Winged cars were unnecessary to begin with. Show ended at midnight.
4. Cars have gotten so ugly it's beyond likeable. Cage panel city and "Flat black is the new flat back" and no thought in schemes besides Mitchell Davis #56.
I wasn't expecting greatness but something a little more than what I witnessed. It was good enough to go back and hopefully they can take some suggestions and not silence any and all criticism like what's happening on IOW.

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

I think a stiff breeze also factored in on track prep. I thought both nights were great. Race for the lead wasn't that great on Saturday. (it was on Friday) Second thru sixth was real good. Had a great time and hung out and met some nice people. Hopefully they will do it again. Thanks to all involved.

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

I disagree. Knoxville has a huge history with Winged Sprint Cars. They have a large weekly sprint car show that has a good following. By having one winged class each night, it made sure that the local fans had a reason to come to the show. If the car counts continue to grow and the crowd continues to grow, there may become a point where they are not needed. However, at this point consider it the price to pay to have a race at Knoxville.

Heckuva price, they put on a good show as well. It felt like midget week, when you got to see two open wheel classes.

A few of MY observations from the inaugural CornBelt Nationals:

1.) I don’t think anyone in their right mind could have imagined 51 non-winged cars would show up Friday night when this event was conceived last year. A GREAT turnout!

2.) After starting hotlaps Friday night about 45 minutes later than advertised, Knoxville, USAC and POWRi/WAR ran 10 hot lap sessions, qualified 92 cars 2 laps each, ran 10 8 lap heat races, a 10 lap C main, 2 B mains, an 18 lap feature and a 25 lap feature. Yes, we got out of there right around midnight, but that is a LOT of racing! Two multi car crashes involving multiple cars flipping definitely slowed the night down too. It was a great cooperative effort from the organizers, sanctioning bodies, crews and drivers to get all that racing done so efficiently.

3.) Nick Bilbee is either the biggest bada** in the country or the luckiest. He bicycled three times (at least) getting in to turn 1, twice high enough I could see the bottom of the car, and yet kept pounding it in there Saturday night in the feature. Great job to not turn it over!

4.) For a “kinda used up” (quoting another post) racetrack, it sure provided some good racing in both the 360 winged and the non-winged sprint features. Both ran 2-3 wide through the pack during both races. Overall, Friday exceeded my expectations.

5.). Brady Bacon and his team definitely had everyone covered this weekend. I don’t know what they’ve figured out, but early in last night’s feature, he was running over 0.4 seconds/lap faster than Leary on my handheld watch (cellphone). THAT is impressive!

We’ve been to the Knoxville Nationals for the last 6 years, but never to a weekly Saturday night Knoxville show, so I can’t relate to how the crowd compares between a normal weekly show and last nights, but a couple locals I spoke to were very impressed at the turnout both nights. Hopefully the mgmt. at Knoxville was impressed enough to do this again. I’ll drag my butt out there for the CornBelt Nationals and the Knoxville Nationals as long as I’m able if they keep having them!

Perhaps I was too enamored by my first visit to the “sprint car capital of the world” but I can’t find anything to complain about. Outside of the Macho Man decimating the field, the racing was great, track was good and the people were friendly. I’m sure I’m in the minority but I was looking forward to the wings as well. Obviously the Nationals are run with them and it’s the biggest dirt track race in the world, so I was happy to see those guys live to get a better feel for what I’m seeing when watching on TV. And they’re racing was pretty good. I did find a bit of irony in the fact that an Indiana kid gets his first Knoxville win on the night they’re running wingless. I have to tell any of you that haven’t been there to go when you get the chance. When you drive up, you just get the feeling that you’re someplace special. It looked to me like a good crowd especially Saturday. I would like to know the number, but I think it was good enough that they see the potential to bring it back and grow it. Perhaps next year we can get even more folks involved and turn this into a must see event. My trip was highlighted by getting to meet and talk to a couple VIP’S of the sport. Met and chatted with Kendra Jacobs, Richard Marshall, and Spridge. Humbled that they had time for us. Overall a great experience and I hope more of us can enjoy it in the future. Lastly I have to thank Oppweld for being my wingman for the weekend, and Brent and Asha for hanging out with us, a weekend I’ll never forget!

Mitchell Davis's former Robert Ballou Boss Chassis is sharp, but he wasn't the only one anti flat black.😁

"Wingman? Make that "non wing man"mister! I'll let it go this time. Great racing Perfect Weather,Great times with great people! It's easy to find fault when things aren't perfect, but it was a major success on all fronts as far as I'm concerned.

Sorry my friend, perhaps a poor choice of words, especially on IOW!

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

One of the things that made this event cool, was the big event feel. Having the Hall of Fame right there is great. Parked my car and my motel, a grocery store, a Casey's, the Dingus, and a couple of really good restaurants were all within walking distance. Spent over 3 hours at the museum. Every half hour they offer a tour of the Bryan Clauson Suite Tower. It was really neat. Had a great touch screen display on Bryan in the museum, and a nice short movie on A J Foyt. The Dingus had a pretty good live band in the afternoon on Saturday, and showed Sprint Car videos the whole time. Sat by 5 people who live in Knoxville, and they called the crowd big. Hard to tell when it seats that many people. Had a blast and hope it returns next year.

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

Yea, I think the wingers help with local crowd. Pennsylvania wing fans appreciate wingless cars (They get tired of "follow the leader"!), great turnout for Eastern Storm & I always run into some Pa. guys when i visit Indiana. But on my 3 trips to Knoxville Nationals, talking to Iowa fans, they didn't seem too interested in wingless cars, thought they were too slow.
I watched on PPV, crowd didn't seem really big, but they only showed botton half of the stands & like somebody said, huge stadium kind of "swallowed up" the crowd. I hope there were enough fans to make it worthwhile for Knoxville & they keep it growing! :23:

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

It was a great experience being at the Knoxville track for the 1st time. I was given a ticket to sit in one of the hall of fame suites for friday night by one of the people working there. I got to meet a couple of good people from this site and it just seemed like everyone there was friendly and having a good time. I thought they had a good car count both nights.Track was good and so was the usac racing. A shout out to the 0 car of Steve Irwin for making the big show Saturday. Very competitive field. I hadn't planned on it but heading back I turned north to Angel Park for the pepsi nationals. 2 midget features and one nw sprint feature. 2 tracks off my bucket list.

Re: USAC Cornbelt Nats Night 1
 

Glad you made it to Sun Prairie. Heard it was a good show. I loved telling the locals sitting behind us that the wing feature winner was from Kokomo.

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Yes that was really cool that Parker won the 410 wing show. He was elated. 36 nw Wisconsin sprints at Sun Prairie. Didn't know they had a division. Badgers looked strong with 27 and 22 or so powri for their show. 3 features all good. Knoxville was Great to see and then icing on the cake for me.

What,are you retired or somthin:32: