It was 1988 that USAC last ran in Minnesota. I so enjoy sprint cars without wings that I drove 230 miles to Deer Creek to see the USAC sprint cars last night. Greeted with three other classes of stocks and modifiers (not unexpected) but also a track that was so dry, dust showed up on the very first set of hot laps! Minnesota has had all time record rain this month and Deer Creek still managed to have a dry, slick track for USAC's return! And we had to endure the stock cars and modifieds help to dry it out so much, we were treated to an extra hour of additional track prep before the last two features! Despite the poor track conditions, the USAC guys still were able to demonstrated great driving skills. But with some more knowledgeable track prep, the show could have been so much better. And with a couple of small regional attempts to revive non-wing racing in the upper midwest, it could have really helped. Deer Creek missed their opportunity.

I spent 1 week camping in the Deer Creek pits during the USMTS modified nationals a couple years ago. (You haven't seen REAL modified racing until you watch USMTS, great racing!)

During that week, we got to spend a little time with the promoters family. They let us in to see all the finer details of how they operate the DCS facility. They truly had a first class operation.

One of the promoters son, was in charge of track prep. He told us that they like to keep the cushion as small as possible. If the track surface is heavy with a large cushion the racing is normally a freight train right around the top.

The first night of racing we had rain move in just before hot laps. Track was heavy and the racing wasn't all that special.

All 3 nights after night 1, I got to see some incredible 4 wide racing and they kept the track just like they said they wanted.

Now, I wasn't there on Saturday but considering my past experience at DCS, I'd expect they tried to prepared a track that they thought would produce the best racing and I'll take that! Wish I could've been there.