Great American Circle Track Tour - We Visit Kil-Kare and Columbus Speedways

Many times the sign at the entrance of the track can tell us a lot about the way the facility is maintained and run. This sign is one of the best we’ve seen on our Tour so far. It tells us the owners and promoters care about the image they project. We’ll tell you more about our recent visits in this issue.

Many times the sign at the entrance of the track can tell us a lot about the way the facil

The first two races on our 2011 AMSOIL Great American CT Tour were dirt tracks and I can say we enjoyed both of them a lot. Now we have two asphalt tracks to visit that are within an hour or so of each other in and around Columbus, Ohio. Kil-Kare Speedway, located in Xenia, Ohio, is a Friday night track and Columbus Speedway runs its show on Saturday night. Both were interesting and provided some insight into subjects of interest on this Tour. And, they are both different in construction than most other tracks we see.

This year had very strange spring weather across the Midwest and into Ohio and Pennsylvania where we saw late snow and lots of rain with high winds. It was definitely not racing weather by any means.

So, each week we would study the weather for the area around the tracks where we would visit next. Most of the time it showed rain, but as the days grew closer, the patterns changed and miraculously it cleared just in time to allow the tracks to open, most of the time. We had already been forced to cancel our visit to Hagerstown Speedway because of rain.

For this weekend, Kil-Kare looked OK, but Columbus on Saturday night looked not so good. One funny thing that happened on the way to the race on Friday was when we stopped to get the bus washed. We pulled in to the Professional Truck Wash located off I-270 on the west side of Columbus to get rid of the mud and dirt we had accumulated and spent the next two and a half hours there. We were fourth in line behind three semi tractors, no trailers.

The team who hand-washed these trucks and our bus took almost 45 minutes on each tractor and nearly the same on our bus. That is a long time. I’ve never seen such attention to detail, going to excess at times, as we saw them brush the exhaust pipes three and four times. It was unbelievable. But we had set aside some time, luckily, and we came away with a very clean motorhome.

Kil-Kare Speedway
This track is a 1⁄3-mile asphalt NASCAR Whelen All-American Series racetrack that is a bit odd shaped. Looking at it from above, we see a configuration that doesn’t resemble an oval, but rather a shape that takes some getting used to by the drivers.

The shape of Kil-Kare Speedway was a surprise. It not only didn’t resemble an oval, it had no appreciable straights, just varying degrees of steering input. The small scale cars drove on the outer part of the Figure 8 track to keep the speeds down. I agree with that plan.

The shape of Kil-Kare Speedway was a surprise. It not only didn’t resemble an oval, it had

Coming here for the first time must feel very different. And, there is a Figure 8 track inside the "oval." We saw very good action with two- and three-wide racing, but the number of cars as well as the fan attendance was low. Some of this was due to the cold temperatures that were still hanging around.

Teams that reside in and around Columbus, about 60 miles away, can’t get here in time coming from work to race on a Friday night. So, this promoter loses the opportunity to draw from that large populated area.

The event was well organized and ran very smoothly. The classes run here are the Late Models (NASCAR rules), IMCA-type Modifieds, Sport Stocks, and Compacts. It’s nice to be able to run for national points under the NASCAR home tracks umbrella, but in places like this, with low car counts, which in itself provide points toward the national rankings, it’s hard to compete.

The facility was clean and well maintained and could be a money maker when the weather warms up, but in this economy, drawing better numbers of teams will be hard. One idea might be to offer the longer practice sessions needed when running on asphalt on Thursday night, allow teams to park the rigs at the track overnight, and then all the teams would need to do for Friday night is drive to the track in a transporter and be ready to run qualifiers and main events that night. That may attract more teams from Columbus and elsewhere.

The scale cars were few, but one did have it all together lapping almost the entire four-car field. It’s too bad they can’t attract more of these starter class cars. They really do a good job of teaching driving and racing skills. I could see certain drivers advancing their learning of side-by-side racing and how to drive the correct line as each lap passed.

The scale cars were few, but one did have it all together lapping almost the entire four-c
This sign for Kil-Kare looks somewhat temporary, a fabric sign wrapped over a previous sign. I fear there is no confidence in the track staying in business when I see this display. I hope I’m wrong.

This sign for Kil-Kare looks somewhat temporary, a fabric sign wrapped over a previous sig
The IMCA-type Modifieds ran here with the NASCAR Late Models, a dying breed. The racing was very good as this track featured the handling of the cars more than horsepower.

The IMCA-type Modifieds ran here with the NASCAR Late Models, a dying breed. The racing wa

Check out the long line of Sport Compact cars. This was a huge class, something we are seeing across the board with more and more tracks replacing larger stock classes with import, four-cylinder classes.

Check out the long line of Sport Compact cars. This was a huge class, something we are see
Don’t you wish you could elevate your fullsized race car this easily? The Dirt Late Models do have a hydraulic lift similar to this one that is used with the touring teams.

Don’t you wish you could elevate your fullsized race car this easily? The Dirt Late Models

The AMSOIL Great American Circle Track Tour

Hitting two northern asphalt tracks