I-55 Raceway -- the track!

jdearing

jdearing

Administrator
Staff member
The new dirt and the leveling of the entire surface over the winter looks like it is going to be great. Very smooth all night long too.

A new 85 foot light tower will be going in the infield to provide some additional lighting on the back stretch!

A great night of racing at I-55!!
 
ripped off at i-55

while my son and i were enjoying a great night of racing, sombody was helping themselves to the stuff in my work truck on the parking lot!!!! plenty of light out there!! i hope i was the only one. missing dewalt radio/battery charger with battery($178.00) and some misc. hand tools. other than that we had a great time.
 
I thought the track was very nice :) Very racey... The cars ALL looked FANTASTIC!!!!! Was Good to see some Summer friends. Sure missed ya'll over the winter. :)
 
The track might have been smooth, but for I-55 standards it was very one laned and strickly around the bottom by the time they lined up for the features. The track was on the verge of being to bottom dominant last year and they went ahead and leveled out the banking more making the bottom even faster in comparison to the top. Why do people have to go and change things that were so good that they didn't need change. If anything the bottom needed less bank and the top needed more. I'm a huge supporter of I-55 raceway, but this new dirt business did nothing but harm to the facility. (this is not an attack on the quality of the work done, but merely on its direction).
 
laynejw

Let me help ya out a little.

1.) The maximum degree of banking in each corner of the track is exactly the same as it was last year.

2.) The bottom of the track is the same.

3.) Banking was ADDED going into and coming out of the corners on both ends of the track - quite a bit in turn 4 especially.

4.) There is not one inch of that track where the degree of banking was decreased - I know this 1st hand.

The track was simply too dry. Hard to judge the amount of water to put on a race tack the opening night especially with a new surface.

Come back next week when she's good and tacky most of the night.
 
?????????????????????

Some of your faster cars were coming in through the middle :O
Justin to be exact and Walsh took to the high groove and came up to fourth. I walked across the track after the races still had moisture in it.. Ot at least my shoes picked up yucky mucky sticky dirt on the bottom of my shoes. I agree there was no cushion but sometimes that can make the playing field alittle more even. And the low groove has always been very popular for the catfishers. ;)

Can't wait for the things to come :)
 
Re: laynejw

Originally posted by Black Ice
Let me help ya out a little.

1.) The maximum degree of banking in each corner of the track is exactly the same as it was last year.

2.) The bottom of the track is the same.

3.) Banking was ADDED going into and coming out of the corners on both ends of the track - quite a bit in turn 4 especially.

4.) There is not one inch of that track where the degree of banking was decreased - I know this 1st hand.

The track was simply too dry. Hard to judge the amount of water to put on a race tack the opening night especially with a new surface.

Come back next week when she's good and tacky most of the night.
Click to expand...


I agree, the track was too dry, and because of that, the track pretty much locked down to one groove for the late models. Still, with the dry track, the action was good. Can't wait when it has the proper amount of moisture in it, it should be wicked fast.
 
Most of the racers I talked with afterwards were very pleased with the track. Many liked it that dry too.
 
TRACK WAS BEST ITS BEEN IN ALONG TIME BUT ITS BACK TO OL PEVELY CONDITION WHERE YOU BURN UP ALOT OF TIRES ,IT WAS VERY ABRASIVE YOU COULD PASS ANYWHERE AS A DRIVER IT WAS NOT ONE GROOVE BY NO MEANS , I JUST HAVE TO STAY OUT OF THE WALL LOL. BRIAN 166
 
Brian

You were flying and looking AWESOME!!! I agree keep it out of the wall :( Hope it's not hurt to bad...
Good Luck this year and the car looks GREAT !!!!!

lisa
 
i have to agree the track was a little dry which caused the cushion to go way up the track before the features but it still gave us some good racing especially that modified feature
 
laynejw

AAAHHHH, its DIRT ! ! ! !

The track will not be the same week in and week out.
No matter what is done, temperture, wind, ect. Thats why its dirt track racin, if you want the same track conditions, race asphalt.

1st night of racing, may have been follow the leader type track, not because of the track, but because the drivers did not want to take chances after building their new cars all winter. Most were in new equipment or rebuilt equipment.
 
track

laynejw- bottom dominant last year? I think there was alot of racing on the topside last year. Just sometimes you need to use a little brain matter and foot control to " finish" a race. :eek:
 
track

Not bad for first night, little dusty in the stands. Drivers and crews that adjust cars for track conditions at feature time will prevail. I'm sure next week will be better.
 
I didn't think it was that dusty, but I have to agree that it looked really, really abrasive. Much like it did at the end of 2000. It also has that same bottom groove syndrome that it did at the end of that year. I personally like tracks rough and heavy or at the very least rough. It would take all those traction control arguments away as tc has a real tough time dealing with tires getting off the ground even for a fraction of a second in the corner. I disagree about there being nothing different about the banking though. At first I thought that maybe the bottom was just holding more moisture than it usually does, but as it dried out the top didn't equal out like it usually does. I haven't seen Pevely have a cushion like it did in the dashes and be that bottom oriented very often. Maybe I'll change my mind in a couple of weeks, but for the time being I'm sticking to my guns about the track being worse off now than before. Wish we had our own car out here to run on it... Might have a more educated opinion on the matter. Keep in mind again that I enjoyed the races alot, but I know that the track is capable of much much better. Now I get a couple of days off and then its off to complain about Belleville.... lol..

P.S. I know there was alot of people running on the top last year. Especially in the modifieds whose configuration makes it much easier. Dixon seemed to run up there alot when he probably would have been better off dropping down. He is so good at it however that it made the top look better than it was. I'll refer back to 2001 when Gundaker won the first two races out of the box running all on the top. Since then the cushion has been an inconsistent being. They proved last season that they could create as heavy of a surface as they wanted with as big of a cushion as they want. That was the race that had a bunch of cars tore up and I agree that the surface was too fast. The only reason it happened because the cars blew dust off their tires in the first hotlap session and they rewatered it. If they made some compromise in the preperation they could create a good balance with the way the track is set up now. They seem to prefer the track to be slick and smooth with almost no cushion. When that happens we'll get what we had Saturday Night. Not bad, but definentily not great (for I-55 standards) racing.
 
Also I think the idea that rougher racetracks tear up racecars is a bit flawed. I think far more cars have been tore up by cars getting spun on slick surfaces and causing pile ups. These pileups are blamed on the driver causing the accident and thus aren't attributed directly to the race track. If cars were built sturdy and hefty enough rough surfaces couldn't touch the cars and thus we wouldn't dust the fans or have to worry about traction control being a factor. It all comes from the twisted psychology of the racer and even worse the fan. I can call it twisted, because I have the same problems and stubborn concepts on other issues.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.




Back
Top