[Jerry Shaw]

A couple of months ago, I decided to go see for myself just exactly how much change Lawrenceburg Speedway was undergoing. So we (my girlfriend and I) decided to load up the Buick Regal and spend a Saturday finding that out. As I said back then, it just took one second to be struck by the fact that seeing pictures of what they had done did absolutely zero justice to what they had actually done, there. The enormity of it, that is. No matter how the racing turned out be, once it would start, from at least a landscaping point of view, we were looking at the 8th Wonder of the Racing World. As far as speculation of how the racing would be, I'll admit, I was skeptical. No doubt it would be fast. But, racy also, with banks that high? I would have to see that to believe it.

Skip forward to Saturday night. Up until a couple of laps into the 5th heat, I thought my skepticism might be well founded. So much of the track was not being used, up until that point. That's when Chad Boesflug and Chris Windom decided to move up the track and use the gas pedal to overcome their bad pill draws. To me, when that happened, it was like the flight attendant said "The Captain has turned on the racing light, please feel free to move about the track." And when feature time came, it only got better. The battle for the lead between Dave Darland and Hunter Schurenberg was awesome. So was the late race recovery and charge to the front by Robert Ballou. If it would have been a 30 lapper, we could have seen another on of those epic battles for the win, like we saw Robert and Jesse wage, earlier this year @ THAT. I left there having seen a great sprint car race and also a new surface capable of producing some classic races. The kind people talk about for years. Also thought that later on this week, they would be adding Cole Whitt, Jesse Hockett, Levi Jones, Shane Cottle, Brad Sweet to name a few to what I had just saw! And wouldn't this be a great place to see Haud take the wing off and try to steal the money? And who ever designed the lighting? Great work! Once nightfall hits, the surface and cars are perfectly illuminated. It's my impression that this is one of those big, wide, fast tracks that if a guy has the horsepower and really wants to win bad enough, he should be able to find a way. I know it's still early, but I left there way more impressed than I thought I would be. And am really looking forward to getting back there Wednesday and Thursday. Sprint Week will open with a BANG!, in my opinion.

Jerry