I attended both days of racing at Springfield over the final weekend of the Illinois State Fair.

On Saturday the Silver Crown pit area contained no less than 38 Silver Crown cars. Unfortunately there were some mechanical casualties and one car was lost to the turn #3 wall during qualifications. Some of the best racing of any kind on any size track consisting of any division I've ever seen took place during the 76 laps that made up the rain shortened Bettenhausen Memorial.

On Sunday the ARCA stock car pit area contained no more than 16 ARCA stock cars and I'm not sure how many sportsman stock cars. The racing in both divisions was as boring as any racing could be and the ARCA race was decided primarily by a stupid rule that I'm loathe to explain here.

The contrast of racing quality was as stark as it's possible to be in favor of the Silver Crown division yet there were more than twice as many spectators for the Sunday events than for the Saturday Silver Crown race. Granted the crowd turnout was not great for the Sunday events but was more than twice the Saturday attendance, nonetheless.

It's both amazing and dismaying at the same time that the superb quality of racing that has become the norm for the Bettenhausen Memorial is no better supported than what we saw Saturday afternoon. Then just one day later 16 stock cars and some local sportsman cars (okay, Schrader isn't local and he won by a straight away) gets over double the support.

The USAC powers that be have rebuilt the Silver Crown division which draws literally dozens of cars that put on a near epic show every time they race on the mile tracks and no one shows up. It seems as if there are deep seated preconceived notions regarding the quality of racing of the big cars on the big tracks. It's nothing more than notions because since the rebirth of the Silver Crown division the racing on the mile tracks, especially Springfield, has been nothing short of dazzling.