USAC Silver Crown - 2022 Schedule…..
 

USAC Silver Crown

2022 Schedule

Schedule posted in the picture attached to the post below.

Re: USAC Silver Crown - 2022 Schedule…..
 

The one track I wish was on there was West Va. Motor Speedway. Tracks too big for sprints and LM's but not for a crown.

I hope for no rainouts, good car counts, and good crowds.

I can't believe they don't run an east coast asphalt race. Thompson, Stafford or Richmond all look like a good fit for those cars.

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Maybe it's just me but I think it would be cool to see the USAC Silver Crown cars run a combined show at either Bristol, Martinsville, or the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway or all 3 with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. I think Nashville would be cool for the sprints and midgets as well.

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Truly thankful that the USAC division that Smokey Yunick once described as the last true "racing" division in the country is back at our two beloved Illinois mile dirt tracks for another year!! The health of participation is very good. Never, in all my years of being a bleacher jockey, have I seen absolutely great racing so sparsely supported as the two Illinois dirt miles. Especially Springfield. Last August the race was halted at 76 miles but there was action and excitement enough packed into those 76 laps for 200 miles!

Thank you Bob Sargent, USAC, all car owners, crew's and drivers for promoting, organizing and producing some of the best racing we see all year long!!

I see the two most important races are on there now everybody needs to go support them. These new dirt cars put on fantastic racing on the mile dirt tracks. I promise you’ll get your money’s worth. I put those two on my calendar first, then anything else falls into place after.

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Silver Crown cars ran Richmond in the past and put on a great show, would love to see it back on the schedule. Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway was on the 2020 Silver Crown schedule and was lost due to COVID, maybe once they get past the facility upgrade and the NASCAR stuff it might be back in the future. Gateway (or whatever it's called these days!) with IndyCar in August should be great!

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Bob Sargent was involved when they were scheduled at Nashville. I doubt the Bristol people are interested. I would think most teams don't really want many more races.

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Didn't the Gateway action of the mid-00s make the series realize that the stand-up roadsters were not safe to handle on a fast 1 mile+ track like that?

It eventually resulted in this type of thinking:

https://i.postimg.cc/2SxmbwLt/Silver.jpg

And thinking of the sort nearly resulted in the death of the series. What has changed since then to once again go this route?

Seems to me Carl Edward's was in for 2, a couple of friends of mine worked at the radiator shop in indy that were building some cars.

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The traditional cars were not safe on the 1.5 mile tracks. OK on all miles including Gateway. If 1&2 were as opened up as 3&4 at Gateway it would have been a problem.

Mike Devin

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Someone else spoke on a different post about "Silver Crown" cars taking dates away from Sprints and Midgets. I wonder with the X-racing news how safe the Silver Crown series is. I have stated for several years that the risk/reward ratio for Silver Crown cars does not make sense.

If these races consistently made money, there would be more dates. Everyone says "I loved it when they raced at xxxx speedway. I wonder why they don't go back." The reason is that the promoter lost money or barely broke even on that race.

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I made a wish in another thread earlier this year for a return of the big cars to Gateway. Now it's happening! I'm not penciling in this event for 2022 though, I'm marking it down with a Sharpie! Being a 1.25 mile track, this is the superspeedway of the Silver Crown Series and is just perfect for these machines. Go search out some of the old events on Youtube- they were just great! Can you tell that I'm over-the-moon?

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Thanks for the look, Chris. I posted earlier in this threat about thinking the track was too big for these guys back 20-some years ago, but apparently not. I know the cars ran well at Milwaukee all the time, too. I guess it was the bigger 1.5 mile cookie-cutter tracks as DRC II pointed out that lead to the beginning of the "dark years" for the big cars. Not to mention buddying up with NASCAR.

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Yeah Mike, the Crown cars go exceptionally well at Gateway as well as Milwaukee which you mentioned. The Mile would be another great addition to the schedule. Bob Sargent promoted an ARCA race there last year, so maybe he can help grant another wish of mine in 2023.

As far as being too fast for the mile-and-a-halfs, you are correct. Maybe @AmyCoons could get her husband to chime in, but I seem to remember that Jerry tested a traditional Silver Crown car at Nashville Superspeedway in hopes that they could play undercard to NASCAR events there. During the test, they were going so fast that the rear tires were aero-lifting off the track at the ends of the straightaways. I'm sure that was completely unnerving. It also lead NASCAR to convince USAC to upend the entire series and implement what the late, great Robin Miller deemed "upside-down bathtub racing".

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I am glad for the fans, Silver Crown, and YOU with respect to them chasing Gateway in 2022. This series is only going in the right direction these days. :6:

I had pert near given it up for dead 12 years ago. Wasn't there another series called PRA that picked up the scraps for a little while during the lean years?

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Yes there was. I went to Illiana and watched them there in 2006. I know they also went to Stafford Speedway in Connecticut,as friends went there for that race

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I was at the Illiana race as well PRA Big Car Series "South Shore 125"

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Several years back while working at USAC, the midget division was under my watch. After 2 crashes at Springfield involving Robby Flock and Dan Drianan I pleaded with Roger McCluskey to relook at running Midgets on the mile. Everyone has seen the pictures of Drianan's crash. I was on the backsretch when Flock took his tumble, being one of the 1st on the scene I was terrified to see his belts had stretched to the point they were off his shoulders!! Roger agreed with me and stopped scheduling Midgets on the dirt miles. The same logic applys to Silver Crown cars at Gateway. On one of our visits SC cars were reaching speed on the front stretch of 175 mph!!!! A solid axle racecar with no type of attenuator made of metal tubbing is not designed to asorb the energy of a impact at those speeds. Yes, they were entertaining to watch, but to those of us that traveled the country with the drivers, that had relationships with them and their families, had a single goal, to leave town with no one hurt! The "new generation SC" car was designed to allow speeds at places like Holmstead, Gateway, Fontana, ect.. Those that raced them were extremely compimentary about how they raced. The purses were elevated, the racing was close, given a few years to massage the appearance, and car counts to increase, there was an opportunity that never was allowed to mature. Brian Tyler has at least 2 of the NGS cars that he competes with today on roadcourses and wins with ! Did they have a chance to provide the bridge to Indy Car that all openwheel fans were looking for?

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While wildly hated on this forum, I always thought that the "new generation" SC cars were a step in the right direction for all of the reasons mentioned above. I find it humorous that people will get on this forum and go on and on about how USAC has no forward thinking and is living in the past. However, when they truly tried something to completely change the future of the sport, they are ridiculed for it. If these cars were successful, USAC would look very different today.

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Paul White and Brad Nooffsinger did the testing at Nashville. The cars were very unstable at speed and they did experience wheelspin at the end of the straights(at about 185mph) where the backend wanted to slide down the banking at the corner entry. These cars could not have wall contact at these speeds and survive.

Mike Devin

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Sorry to see that again Joe James/Pat O'Connor left off the schedule. Is that the end of one of USAC's most enduring annual classics?

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And just for ***** and giggles let's strp 480 lbs of fuel on the car held on by 3-4 1 inch tabs!