After Word

after

WORD

Photo: Conrad Nelson

By Adam Cornell

WE’VE BEEN HEARING about the new Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) spearheaded by Tony Stewart and Ray Evernham. Normally I’d take minor note of such a thing and discard it. I only have so many brain-cycles a day to spend on things. Asphalt racing doesn’t garner too many of those brain-cycles. But I stopped short with SRX and paid attention. The thing that piqued my curiosity was the dirt tracks sprinkled into the inaugural season.

Nestled in amongst the six races are two back-to-back dirt track races using the SRX car. Knoxville Raceway in Iowa on June 19th then at Eldora Speedway in Ohio a week later.

What are these guys up to?

I checked out the Ray Evernhamdesigned car and it sounds interesting. I can’t help but note the similarity to the Ferrari F40 from the late 1980s. A passing resemblance to shape is about all it has in common with that Pininfarina styling, however. The SRX is powered by a front-mount Ilmor 396 engine based on the LS V8 that has some heritage with the ARCA stock cars. Word is that it will put out 530 ft-lb of torque with over 700 hp.

The car is built to run on asphalt and dirt, oval and road courses and be good but not great, in the words of Tony Stewart. The idea is to highlight the drivers not the car. It’s a very interesting concept. Not too terribly unlike the now defunct IROC series from years past.

Will it work? Who knows.

But it is very interesting that NASCAR decided dirt should be on its schedule the same year Tony Stewart is pitching SRX with two dirt track races in the lineup. It certainly explains quite a bit about NASCAR’s motivations and their maneuvering.

Where will dirt track racing fans fall on the SRX question? Will they like the uniformity and the cross-over nature of the series? Perhaps.

Unfortunately, knowing the fandom of dirt track racing, more than likely they will ignore it en masse. Fans of sprints are rarely also major fans of late models and vice versa. Will they welcome a new brand of car on the track even with the clout of a Stewart and an Evernham behind it? I have my doubts. But I also have my curiosities. I wouldn’t mind being in the stands at Knoxville or Eldora to watch these SRX cars slide around the track with perhaps some big names in racing behind the wheels.

Curiosity killed the cat, but it also launched the iPhone. Can dirt track racing be done better? We may know quite a bit more about SRX’s plight on the dirt track by the end of June.

Photo: Conrad Nelson