Midget Races at Banker's Life
 

The Bad Boy Invitational is bringing Dirt Racing to Bankers Life Fieldhouse! Be here to experience Indy's first indoor Dirt Midget and Outlaw Kart races on Saturday, December 12. Tickets start at JUST $20 and go on sale starting Friday, October 16 at 10 a.m.

Wow!!

Good timing. That is the Saturday before the Duquoin Powri race

Re: Midget Races at Banker's Life
 

I see that the Pacers are at the arena on December 11. This race is on December 12. I'm wondering how you build a dirt track in a few hours...... :11: Who is promoting this? I can't find anything on the internet about this event.

Indyindoors.com

Re: Midget Races at Banker's Life
 

IDK, Theyre going to build it overnight It also says something about 40 competitors. Is it invite only. None of the other stuff other than general schedule of events is up
http://www.indyindoors.com/news/

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Honestly Im suprised Indoor dirt full size midgets hasn't taken off. I really enjoyed the Du Quoin one when I went. The Silly bowl is what it is, I think its cool this one is putting 10k on a one day midget show vs competitors having to stay a week.

Indy, Duquoin, Silly Bowl. Room for a couple more?

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i cant be the only one who hopes that this is a HUGE SUCCESS!!!! this town is starving for racing during the winter months, and this could be the key to get us through the winter!

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Says 40 of the biggest names in midget racing will be invited. 50 loads of dirt... 800 feet of steel barrier. Are we talking about once in a while NASCRAP drivers and sprint car drivers who drive a midget once a year. The list will be interesting. The promoter has an address in Charlotte, NC....... Wasn't this already a failed attempt at Kemper Arena in Kansas City? By the reports it was an oversized 1/4 (.25) midget track. What's going to be different about this deal.

Ventilation sucks in the building. this is more based on Thunder in the Dome from years ago and it was successful

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why not add thr t.q.midgets in there too..they deserve a deal like this,,and id bet they would attract a really good field,,come on guys give the t.q.s a chance again,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,big d

With your ever present sense of positivity I'm sure you will get an invite...

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is there a way to enter this event or is it invite only? I figured something like this would happen in Lucas oil not Bankers life but whatever. Hopefully its open to whoever if not I am sure I can find someone to wheel my car, but I will defiantly be there.
Brandon Gray:22::22:

Re: Midget Races at Banker's Life
 

So here are the top 25 midget drivers for 2015 according to the National Midget Driver of the year. It does not list 26-40.

Driver Points Races Wins
1 Tanner Thorson 1027 27 4
2 Rico Abreu 1023 18 8
3 Darren Hagen 1001 37 5
4 Christopher Bell 921 24 7
5 Bryan Clauson 881 20 5
6 Spencer Bayston 871 38 3
7 Andrew Felker 754 35 3
8 Tyler Thomas 728 29 2
9 Kevin Thomas Jr. 712 23 3
10 Zach Daum 586 20 3
11 Tracy Hines 472 16 0
12 Austin Brown 463 28 0
13 Jerry Coons Jr. 452 16 1
14 Justin Peck 401 24 2
15 Kyle Schuett 391 28 0
16 Frankie Guerrini 339 16 4
17 Steve Drevicki 336 19 0
18 Tucker Klaasmeyer 320 27 0
19 Ronnie Gardner 311 15 2
20 Anton Hernadez 285 14 2
21 Ryan Bernal 280 12 1
22 Gage Walker 265 18 1
23 Matt Sherrell 264 11 1
24 Chet Gehrke 251 16 2
25 Bob Harr

Re: Midget Races at Banker's Life
 

Thanks for the complimentary remark. Care to list all the positives of the Kemper Arena deal?
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It can not happen in Lucas Oil Stadium because of scheduling it takes 2 days to move in or out all the dirt. And they are limited on space so they control car count by invitation only

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I am excited about this as I love DuQuion and have been wanting to see a indoor dirt race in Indy. When my brother called and told me about it I was super excited but when I saw it was an invitational (since we run the midget limited) I'm pretty sure my name is not going to show up on this list. Still hoping to see this be successful and will just have to run DuQuion the next weekend.

I hope it's a big success! I agree needs to be at Lucas Oil maybe if it grows.

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;)

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im hoping that this is maybe a feeler type event and if it goes well itll move to lucas oil

I'm considering coming from il for this. Sounds cool. Any idea of track size?

Nothing can be as bad as Kemper, Don, lol. I am having a positive outlook on this and hope it happens for sure!

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One thing Kemper didn't have was a crap ton of racing people already in town for a trade show.

I hope it's a success.....just not sure on the economics and venting. That and the bill for cleaning it will be high. I believe they ran karts and bikes on ice there once.

If it is in conjunction with whatever PRI is called today.... It will have a crowd but I believe Lucas oil is also used for the show.

The Chili Bowl, Ft Wayne and Duquoin are the longest running indoor Midget races I know of besides the old HoosierDome and Atlantic City TQs.

Houston Astrodome, Fargo Dome, Rosemont Horizon, The Sandbox, Silverdome, Indianapolis Coliseum, Springfield IL, Cincinnati, Dayton, Cow Palace, Kemper, and Races in I believe Louisiana,Alabama, Detroit and Canada have all been tried but couldn't catch on. Maybe a race around Milwaukee too. I'm sure there are several other places I don't know about.

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I'm close enough that I'll definitely go and support them.

I raced indoors at the Seagate Centre in Toledo in 1999. I believe Columbus Ohio also tried an indoor race too. I enjoyed racing in the Hoosier/RCA Dome, and the FargoDome was a blast too!

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Once again, if the (insert race here) made money, the promoters would book more shows. The fact that there is a long list of failed attempts at indoor racing shows you the economics of the deal.

I am not familiar at all with this arena or how big the track will be, but I did live through too painful days at Kemper. While the excitement was very high for the Friday night event, it soon became evident that the track was too small and tight to put on a great event. Saturday was some better because they reworked the corners a little, but it was not a great night of racing.

The concerns about the logistics are very real. I do not see how a safe racing surface/track can be created in less than 24 hours.

Finally, I don't have 10 good things about Kemper, but it would be pretty easy to create 10 lessons learned from Kemper. I just don't know if anyone wants to hear them. :47::deadhorse:

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how big do you think the track will be? 1/6 mile?

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I will be there this is great :8:

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How much does a 800ft steel barrier and probably a ten foot gate cover?

I'd say it will be similar in size to the old Coliseum track at the Indy Fairgrounds. Definitely not as big as the Hoosier/RCA Dome.

Re: Midget Races at Banker's Life
 

1/4=1320'
1/5=1056'
1/6=880'

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my guess is an 1/8 mile track at best. that's about the size of a NHL hockey rink which I assume would fit in there with not a lot a room to spare before the first level of seats. Building a track over night sounds like ambitious. Interested to hear more.

Building it overnight then rapid cleanup so the Pacers can have practice Sunday and another home game Monday. Doesn't seem realistic. I hope it happens, but a lot of things will have to fall in place very quick with no problems.

Building the track is ambitious , but not impossible. You can over come anything with enough people. The crews that work those arenas are great at what they do and are used to quick build outs and turn arounds. Will it be Tulsa quality? Most likely not....but I'm sure it will be safe,

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I was not at Kemper but some of my close driver friends that were there told me the Kemper track could fit inside the infield at Tulsa. About the size of a 1/4 midget track. So do I want to spend my time and money watching full size midgets race on a postage stamp deal? Just because it's tied into the PRI crowd doesn't make it a good event unless you have nothing else to do but sit in a hotel room.The Indy venue was built in 1999, so its not new in terms of its flexibility. There is only so much room in these basketball/hockey places. There is dirt and then there is racing dirt. If they are going to use the moto cross dirt from Lucas, there is a big difference in a motorcycle race and midgets slinging dirt around, how much dust is created and how the dirt has been treated. Also, as I eluded to before, they are publicly advertising the 40 best MIDGET drivers. If I'm the promoter, I'm going to try to get the biggest names in AUTO racing, not the biggest names in MIDGET racing. So.... if you look at the list that I published on this thread, most of the names on there are not going to attract 20,000 people. So we will see in due time who these 40 biggest names in MIDGET racing are. Maybe Gapinski can publish who is 26-40 on his list. So it's academic to me that the 40 best MIDGET drivers should come from that list with a few exceptions such as Kevin Olson, Russ Gamester and a few others, not NASCRAP guys or sprint car drivers that race a midget once in a blue moon. Case in point: Kenny Wallace at the Silly Bowl last year... a major promotion disaster. We will see what this out of town promoter from Charlotte, NC does with this promotion. The only model for this event is Kemper, so......... :11: To me this event would have a lot more potential if it were run on Concrete, not on a tiny hockey dirt track that was created a few minutes ago.

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Kenny was running for the first time ever in a midget... realistic expectations would be that he would struggle to make the higher features. But how was his being there a marketing disaster?

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This might be a little off the wall..

What if instead of looking at all the negatives of this situation, we looked at the positive future events it could turn into.

Mainly a huge indoor event in the Lucas Oil Stadium?

I do hope it is a success. I figure there will be more than enough quality drivers to put on as good a show as possible.

Who knows....it could be just right to put on a great event. The fist time I saw DuQuoin I thought no way will this be a good show and in turn they have great shows there.

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Tim McCreadie is a great example of a non midget driver who showed up and took command of a midget. Kenny Wallace didn't.

I think the fact that the opportunities are so limited in this day and age to approach new venues, most people are just worried that a hastily thrown together event could do as much damage as it could good for the sport. But at the end of the day I think we all hope for it to be a solid event that they can expand on.