A Tale Of Two Track Surfaces On The Eldora High Banks

Column By: RUSTY RHOADES / RPW – ROSSBURG, OH – The farmlands of Western Ohio were again abuzz with the sounds of dedicated dirt fans and 410 cubic inch sprint car engines as Tony Stewart’s Eldora Speedway hosted both the World of Outlaws and USAC National Sprint Car Series for the 3rd annual #LetsRaceTwo high profile double-dip.

“The House that Earl (Baltes) Built” provided very different surfaces from one night to the next, requiring the teams and drivers to be on top of their game communicating with each other and making the proper adjustments each evening. Some of the usual suspects had no problem handling either surface and posting solid finishes both nights, while others took advantage of their track preferences to score impressive finishes.

Friday evening’s racing was carried out on an extremely slick surface, which led to slower lap times but provided for some unbelievable USAC feature action that had the fans standing up watching in awe. Several of the last ten laps had no less than four cars on the doorstep of the lead and using whatever piece of real estate the guy in front of him wasn’t to try and find that elusive grip and make the next pass.

Eventual winner, Justin Grant, got out in front early and was charged with the difficult task of holding off all this late pressure. “My line was slowing down,” Grant said after taking home his third series win this season and second consecutive Eldora victory. “I couldn’t really see all of them but I started hearing them and then I started changing my line.” Grant prefers more grip and higher speeds, but the performance of this team makes that a moot point. “These guys give me a good enough car each night. I don’t have to worry about what type of track it ends up being.”

Dallas Hewitt came as close as anyone to stealing that win from Grant. The nephew of Eldora and open-wheel legend Jack Hewitt used the conditions to his favor and launched his machine past several drivers very late and to the bumper of the leader for his best Eldora USAC finish ever just behind Grant at the line.

“I like it slick here, it kind of eliminates the advantages of a handful of guys that are good here every time we come, and I just try and hang with them.” Hewitt said post-race. “The way the track was tonight, there’s guys on the bottom, middle and top so I just move around and try to go where they’re not.”

Dallas expectedly had bitter-sweet feelings about what was and what could have been.

“You always want one more lap or five more laps but I’ll take second here any day with USAC or anybody actually. But like I said to the crowd, it’s the saddest second place ever, to be that close there at the end is a hard one to swallow.”

In the World of Outlaws Friday night main event, Logan Schuchart let the others try and maneuver their way around the slick Eldora banking while he stuck his Shark Racing entry firmly to the very bottom to grab the lead before halfway and never look back. He immediately moved from his fifth starting spot into the top three and then used impressive low moves under both Jason Johnson and Shane Stewart, who were also trying the low side but couldn’t find nearly the bite that the Shark Racing 1s could throughout the turns, and were no match once Schuchart made it to the lead.

This was a huge win for Logan, whose grandfather Bobby Allen won the first Eldora World of Outlaw race in 1978. He now has two victories in ’17, but is really excited about this one and what it could mean down the line.

“It’s always really cool to win at a place like Eldora that has so much history no matter when you win,” Schuchart added. “Obviously you always want to win that one in July, the Kings Royal, so if we could come back and be just as good, that’s a race that nobody has won in this family. But just to win at Eldora with my grandfather by my side is really cool.”

Allen has both Knoxville Nationals and Williams Grove National Open victories to his credit, so a Kings Royal tally from Schuchart would bring an impressive triple crown to this legendary racing family.

The Saturday evening Eldora surface was much different, with the track crew working hard throughout a sun-drenched afternoon to keep moisture in the surface and return grip and high speeds to the second night of action. It immediately showed, with USAC qualifying times over a second faster than the previous night and nearly a second faster for the World of Outlaws.

Donny Schatz set a blistering A-Main pace from his front row starting position and was never truly challenged, leading every lap in route to his ninth win already on the season. Chad Kemenah, who did not even qualify on the previous night’s slick surface, rebounded extremely well for a runner-up finish from his ninth starting spot by using the middle and high lines to his advantage throughout.

The bottom line didn’t have the grip it did on the previous night, and the traditional Eldora fast line existing nearly at the wall was back, with drivers like Rico Abreu and Shane Stewart pushing the limits of the topside to make their way forward late. For Stewart, his run ended unfortunately with the wall biting him in turn 4 and sending him flipping to a DNF. Abreu, as usual, was closer than anyone to the Eldora concrete and mastered that line to a podium finish from his ninth starting spot. He may have had something for the top two in lap traffic if not for Stewart’s flip bringing out a caution.

The place to race was right on the wall for the Saturday night USAC finale as well. Robert “The Madman” Ballou has no problem with that, and put his number 12 machine right up against it throughout, passing a similarly high-running Chris Windom when he left the top to negotiate slower traffic right around just passed the halfway point. He rode that line to an extremely impressive victory in only his second start back from a serious neck injury last season that kept him out for eight months.

It was a quick return to form for Ballou, who was scrambling to get his car and hauler race-ready only a couple days prior after being cleared to return to action. Making his debut at “The Big E” undoubtedly helped his confidence, having had lots of success here in the past including winning during the inaugural Lets Race Two weekend in 2015.

“I firmly believed before I got here that if there was anywhere I was going to win right away, it was a place like this,” Ballou said. “This is one of the most demanding racetracks you come to, especially when you get it two feet from the wall with no cushion that makes it ten times harder. I think a lot of guys are afraid of the wall, but I’ve always thought if you’re close to it when you do slide into it, that doesn’t hurt as bad as if you slide halfway across the track into it.”

Ballou and his team were able to adapt and adjust to the different conditions that Eldora presented each night and had an outstanding debut weekend overall, scoring a seventh place finish on night one after missing the setup in qualifying and then over adjusting it before starting 12th in the feature.

“We struggled all night to get it close. I didn’t think there was such a way that you could get too tight on a very slick track like that with no cushion at all, but we did,” Ballou said. “We got rolling at the end there but it was just too late. I knew that if we got a fresh start tonight and didn’t do anything silly, we would probably be close to victory lane and that’s what happened.”