[Buckeye_Openwheel]

It is the epicenter of speed, the home of the most famous racing event in the world, a city whose heritage is consumed by racing history. This Saturday a new tradition begins in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Speedway, pairing the breathtaking speed of both TruFuel Must See Racing Xtreme Sprint Series and the Engine Pro Must See Racing Supermodifieds. The first time in the tracks 54 year history the two elite short track divisions have competed on the same night.

Both the sprints and supermodifieds have a long history on the track. Much of prominence of pavement sprint car racing can be traced back to the 1988 season when USAC added several pavement dates to their national sprint series. In an experiment the then fledgling cable network ESPN decided to broadcast several events to take place on Thursday evenings , heralding the beginning of the hugely popular Thursday night Thunder television program. In the inaugural season, three of the broadcasted events took place at Lucas Oil Speedway then known as Indianapolis Raceway Park including the first on July 7 1988. The July 7th event took place in front of a standing room only crowd and attracted many big names in racing. The Thursday night thunder program became such a success that pavement sprint racing sprang up everywhere and began a wildly popular form of auto racing. At its high point the pavement sprint series became a talent pool for Indy Car and NASCAR with many greats like Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon , and Ryan Newman cutting their teeth in front of the world on Thursday Night Thunder. However when ESPN pulled the plug on the show, gradually the interest in the form of racing waned, car counts becoming increasing low and races being cancelled. As the non-wing pavement scene floundered, new winged pavement groups began to come to the forefront of the pavement racing scene. And as the pavement portion of the USAC sprint series evaporated in 2011, Must See Racing picked up the torch becoming the prominent series in pavement sprint car racing, now carrying on the tradition of pavement sprints at Lucas Oil Speedway

The supermodifeds too have been an integral part of Lucas Oil speedway’s history, regularly appearing at the speedway since the 1960’s. However the track has seen 18 years pass since the last supermodifed event and Saturday’s race will mark first ever visit for Engine Pro Must See Racing Supermodifieds, Ushering in a new chapter for fabled machines at the speedway.

For event information check mustseeracing.com

By Pete Smith
Staff Writer luvracin.com
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[Shawn]

Do you really mean Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis?

(AKA:Indianapolis Raceway Park, IRP, O'Reilly Raceway Park, ORP)

[Buckeye_Openwheel]

I guess I do I had originally wrote it as lorp and was told that was not the correct name and bit should be Lucas oil speedway at Indianapolis

I don't know to me it is and always will be irp, can't keep up with the changes anyways

-pete

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[traviskart]

It is IRP and always will be trying to change a name for a sponsor will never catch on

[slick01]

I reckon some of those races on ESPN from Winchester and Salem when the network first started were a figment of my imagination.

[Buckeye_Openwheel]

If my research serve s me correct they did do some usac broadcasts before Thursday night thunder program but the Thursday night thunder program was on a different scale and involved a commitment from both USAC and espn that was really at the time a pretty big gamble for both.

ESPN from inception had featured a lot of motorsports but if I may take a quote from Jim hanks " Thursday night thunder is the gold standard" for short track programming, and its popularity far exceeded that of the other coverage they had previously done

Pete

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[slick01]

I got your original drift, but you are attributing the rise and subsequently the fall of asphalt open wheel racing to the coming and going of ESPN and not the root cause.

[Mud Packer]

My hope is that this show will catch on like the one they run at Toledo. The MSA & AVSS put on a great show at Toledo and it is always interesting to see both the supers and the winged sprints compete on the same program. I think the biggest positive with Toledo is they run the show the same weekend every year. Patrons get to planning on that date and put it on the calendar each year.

[Buckeye_Openwheel]

I would love to see that as well, for me I follow both pavement sprints and supermods so any chance to catch both at the same event going to be on my schedule no matter what else is going on.

I also think its excellent cross promotion, and if we can get a couple more of these dual tickets I think it will provide an incentive for some of the sprint cars guys to build supermods and some of the supermods guys to try their hand in a sprint (you already see a little bit of that happening) but couple more dates and I think you would see most teams having both cars.

-Pete

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[captrat]

I believe the very first racing event ever broadcast by the ABC Wide World of Sports was a USAC Sprint race from Winchester. Pavement racing was an integral part of the schedule (at one point more pavement shows than dirt). The real demise had much more to do with special designed cars for pavement only.