Knoxville

           

          Home again after five days in Iowa for the 52^nd running of the Goodyear Knoxville Nationals sprint car event.

          You really can’t call Knoxville’s four-day festival of sliding sideways a race. There is plenty of racing, a lot of it really great racing. But the Goodyear Knoxville Nationals is an event in the same way the Indianapolis 500 is an event.

          And, as much as anything, the Knoxville event is a celebration of middle America. Winged sprint cars race all over the United States and the fans of the sport number high into the millions. Thousands of them jam the small town of Knoxville for Nationals week and they are treated to the things that make this part of the country great.

          You can eat dinner or lunch (or both) at the local Cattleman’s Association tent and feast on fresh beef (rib eye, burgers, whatever), locally grown, fresh corn (dipped in hot butter) and a choice of other stuff. After the main course, you stroll over to the local Rotary Club area for a slice of homemade pie (take your choice, the variety is great) and some ice cream. The money spent at either place goes to one local charity or another.

          There are lots of eating options, all of them good and many of them featuring locally-produced produce.

          The midway is jammed with all kinds of attractions including my favorite, a booth for Goodyear’s Support Our Troops program. You can have your photograph taken and placed on the side of the Goodyear blimp or sitting inside the blimp. You could sign a wall that will eventually be shipped overseas to some of our troops.

Graham Tire, an Iowa-based Goodyear dealer, had a display of various Goodyear products for trucks, cars and everything else. The Graham display included an attention-getter: A NASCAR stock car they bought from Rick Hendrick’s team, complete with a racing engine.

          The sprint cars typically get on the track about 7:30 p.m. each night but the fans start arriving on site as early as mid morning, just to take in the sites and visit the midway. They walk around and then sit and watch everyone else walk around.

          There is no way to guess who you might meet at Knoxville. The Nationals week attracts fans and teams from every corner of the US, plus international entries. Drivers from Australia, such as Kerry Madsen, race here much of the season and plan their season around competing at the Nationals.

Having said everything above, the people come to Knoxville to see the racing. The track is a half-mile, semi-banked dirt oval. It lends itself to drama. You simply don’t know what might happen next. This year’s final race was decided by .117 of a second.

 The people of Knoxville are warm and inviting. Many of them rent rooms in their homes to visitors in town to watch the racing and life-long friendships have been formed as a result.

The Goodyear Knoxville Nationals is on every race fan’s bucket list and deservedly so.

Thanks for reading.