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This is painful to do - but it's the right thing and the only thing we can do under the circumstances. We want to get notice out ASAP to the DII and Badger teams that we are forced to cancel their portion of our show Friday due to curfew concerns given the large car count expected for POWRi Midgets, Micros and WAR Sprints. Official notification from POWRi to their teams will likely come Thurs morning as they are completing tonight's event at Belleville at this time. We will find a way to put on a meaningful DII event later this year as a make-up.
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Jacksonville Speedway Shortens Friday June 8 Show Due To Curfew Concerns
Officials at Jacksonville Speedway have made the difficult decision to shorten this Friday’s event by cancelling the POWRi Regional DII & Badger Midget Class that was scheduled to appear on account of curfew concerns. The event will proceed with the Lucas Oil POWRi Midgets, Lucas Oil WAR Sprint Cars and POWRi Outlaw Micros as the three classes racing this Friday. Jacksonville has agreed to add a night for the DII midgets to race at Jacksonville later this season on account of having to remove them from Friday’s lineup. That date will be announced on Friday after a review of area schedules.
“This is uncharted territory for us” commented Ken Dobson Jacksonville Track Manger. “We have never canceled a class in advance and certainly understand that teams that compete in the DII Midget class might be upset by this decision. However, the need to make this decision became painfully obvious after noting the high car count in the Midget and Micro divisions on Night 1 of Illinois Speedweek in Belleville. Last year this event ended at roughly 11:20 with the four classes and this year it has the potential to be even bigger.”
“We take our curfew ordinance seriously and try our best to respect our neighbors and the neighborhood we race in” said Dobson.
“While on rare occasions we have gone past our curfew it was always due to something unforeseen or an unexpectedly large car count that was beyond what we anticipated. We have never come into a race where we felt there was a strong likelihood that we would be in violation of our City curfew. That’s a bad precedent and one we don’t want to start. Our only option to shorten the show was to eliminate a class when it became obvious that time wasn’t going to be working in our favor.”
Dobson also noted that reducing the number of classes will allow the track maintenance crew to keep the track in proper racing condition throughout the night. “Curfew is our number one concern here and it takes priority over maintaining the race track throughout the night. We have always been able to provide a great racing surface for this event that provided spectacular racing action every year. We don’t want to short-change our fans by failing to take the time necessary to have a great event.”
Dobson knows that this may be an unpopular decision for the D2 teams that anticipated racing Friday but noted that those who wish to can still race in the open Midget division Friday. Dobson concluded, “This is the right decision, but we acknowledge it might not be a popular decision. In fact circumstances might result in us having fewer cars than we anticipate which would have left us plenty of time for the D2’s. But given the facts we have at this point and time, it’s our only reasonable option to be fair with our City, our neighbors and our fans.”
Jacksonville Speedway invites you to join us this Friday for three great classes of racing for Illinois Speed Weeks with the Lucas Oil POWRi Midget Series, Lucas Oil WAR Sprint Car Series and POWRi Outlaw Micro Series still on tap.
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