Originally Posted by CTtoPA:
I'm going to guess you're a little biased here. The clay they use doesn't appear to be very good. It looks very sandy. The racing was good no doubt, but compared to midwest tracks, the dust is just awful. The facilities are nice and nobody can argue that. The quote was in reference to the actual track itself. Nobody can say anything about the promoters and nobody has. The fact that it lies in an actively mined area on top of a mountain probably has a lot to do with the drainage and excessive dust.
Some things that should be pointed out...The system they use to water the track is cool, as they basically have at their disposal a natural water source that comes from the strip mine to water the racing surface. But to me, part of the problem they have is that they water the speedway with three 9,000 gallon water trucks and then roll the track in with them, packing the surface so tight that it seals over and the moisture never gets deep into the track. Combine a sprint car event with that gritty, sealed over surface, and you have a recipe for dust. The track could be ideal for a USAC event if they changed their philosophy to suit the style of racing they have that night. Just because it works for stock cars, doesn't mean it will for sprint cars.
Btw, even with the dust, I have enjoyed going to Big Diamond the past couple years. It's a great facility, and the racing itself has been good, it's just too hard to see in the feature through the flying dust particles. I personally hope USAC returns, and that a better plan can be devised to keep the dust down.
But, that's just my opinion.
DM