Knoxville Raceway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Knoxville Raceway is a semi-banked 1/2 mile dirt oval raceway located at the Marion County, Iowa fairgrounds in Knoxville, Iowa. Races are held on Saturday nights, and regular events include 360 cubic inch and 410 cubic inch sprint cars.
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[edit] History
The first races were held at the Knoxville Raceway in 1954. The dirt on the track is Des Moines River black bottom gumbo. The Marion County Fairgrounds is governed by a 24 member fairboard and the current Race Director is Ralph Capitani.
The current one-lap track record is 14.407 seconds set by current & 3 times Australian champion Brooke Tatnell on May 7, 2006. During that night, 31 cars timed under the 14 second range and 26 cars beat the old track record set by Terry McCarl during the 2005 Knoxville Nationals.
The driver with the most feature wins at the Knoxville Raceway is Danny Lasoski from Dover, MO. with 88 feature wins. Since the 1980s the Knoxville Raceway has added a second class with the most recent the 360 cubic inch class. Since 1981 the driver with the most 360 Sprint wins is David Hesmer of Marshalltown, Ia. with 65 feature wins. The 2006 410 point champion was Billy Alley of Lincoln, NE and the 360 champion was Jake Peters of Sioux Falls, SD for his third consecutive 360 championship. In 2007, Brian Brown took home his first track championship in the 410 division over Dusty Zomer while Josh Higday took home his first 360 title over Brian Dobesh.
[edit] Knoxville Nationals
Each August, the Knoxville Raceway holds the paramount sprint car event in the United States, the Knoxville Nationals.
[edit] National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum
The National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum is located just outside of turn 2 of the Knoxville Raceway. Known as the NSCHoF&M it features rotating exhibits to highlight the history of both winged and non-wing sprint cars.
