American Highway allows KNLS listeners to travel America's back roads, highways, and byways.  You'll find some of this nation's most interesting people, places and events in these stories.

Dirt Track Auto Racing In Kentucky

Travel State Highway 27 through south central Kentucky on a Saturday night, and you can enjoy small town dirt track auto racing.

The first race won’t begin for hours yet, but teams from four states are already crowding the quarter mile (400 meter) track’s infield and spilling over into the gravel lot behind the stands.

The track is a short oval with a banked turn at each end. The racing surface is red clay dirt that’s packed down to a hard, shiny surface. Spectators sit at the track’s edge, protected only by short cinder block walls and a chain link fence. Fans sitting on the turns are pelted with mud and small stones each time the cars pass.

Driving a quarter mile dirt track isn’t so much racing as it is riding out one long crash. At more than 100 kilometers per hour, the cars whip around the track so quickly they never get a chance to straighten up out of the turns. They look a bit like crabs scuttling down the track sideways and the inside front tire rarely touches the ground.

Most of the drivers are young men in their late teens and early twenties. The youngest competitor driving on this night is just twelve years old. Driver Tyrell Todd is a six-year dirt track racing veteran at the age of 21. He’ll put himself and his car to the test several times trying to earn a spot in the night’s featured race.

"Well, first off, everybody starts out with ‘hot-lapping’, which is practice. You know, everybody gets five, six laps practice, get their car dialed in. Then everybody comes in," Todd explains. "Then everybody runs two laps of qualifying. They get your time, and out of that qualifying, you line your cars up in heat races. The top so many in each heat race will advance to the feature. The ones that do not advance will go on to a consolation race. That’s kind of a ‘last chance’ race. So many in that race will go into the feature. Heat races are usually ten laps. The features, most places you go, are about 30 laps on a regular night."

Five different types of vehicles will compete here tonight. Three are "stock" racers, cars and trucks originally built for street driving, but modified for the track. The other two are cars built from the ground up specifically for dirt track racing. Tyrel Todd drives a car with three times the horsepower of most street vehicles.

"The late model is, most of the time, the fastest class you’ll find. They’re really light cars, but they’ve still got pretty heavy engines with them. You know, a car only weighs 22-2300 pounds, where a car on the road, you’re more likely to see 32-3300 pounds you know, so they’re a lot of horse power with not much to handle it with," Todd says.

Dirt track cars are surprisingly simple. They consist almost entirely of engine, tires, roll-cage and gas tank. The cockpit is so tiny, the steering wheel is removed while the driver slides in through the side window.

Driver Keith Denny gives us a quick tour of the cockpit, saying "Well, of course you’ve got your oil pressure and water temperature gauges, your flip switch, and starter, your brake bias gauges; of course, clutch, gas, brake, your brake adjuster. You got your shifter, your racing seat, and belts. That’s pretty much about everything in the whole car. The rest of it’s up to you."

There are no professionals here; most of the racing teams are formed around family groups or local businesses. The winning purse rarely exceeds a thousand dollars. Keith Denny explains it would be nearly impossible to make a living on the dirt tracks.

"No, you’d have to win everything going," Denny says. "It’s all in fun. It’s a hobby, and it’s all for fun. The more sponsors you’ve got, the better off you are, I mean, it helps. You can get between twelve thousand and twenty thousand in a UMP modified easily."

Veteran driver Ned Jarrett holds four of American racing’s top titles and was recently named one of the top fifty stock car drivers of all time. He says Americans love motor sports because driving is a shared experience, nearly everyone in the United States has a car.

"People do love their cars, have a lot of pride in their cars. Race drivers are doing something that they do, and that is steering an automobile. They are driving it through turns, and driving it on straight-aways, so you know, they are doing some of then same things," Jarrett says.

Mr Jarrett began his own racing career on dirt tracks. He believes strongly that small town racing helped fuel American interest in motor sports of all types and is also a training ground for tomorrows racing all-stars.

He says, "I have always felt that the experience that can be gained on dirt gives you what we call the ‘seat of the pants’ feeling of a racecar, better than asphalt. So if you can learn to drive on dirt and handle a car well, then usually the transition to asphalt is not that difficult, and the experience that you had on dirt can be very helpful to you."

And while he waits to see if he has any chance of breaking into professional racing, driver Mike Brewer says he’ll enjoy dirt track racing’s camaraderie and competition.

"You make a lot of friends out there," Brewer says. "You get someone you can run with, and in the end, everybody’s still buddies. On the track you may have a little ‘bumpin’ or you may lose your temper, but afterwards, everybody’s still friends. The guy that hit you in race four will help you fix your car, in the next race. It’s really a good environment. Something to bring your family to. I keep my kids there at the races and we all have a good time."

Enjoying a night of dirt track racing in Somerset, Kentucky, just another stop along the American Highway.

Would you like to

• ...see Keith Denny's #48 open wheel modified racer?
• ...see Tyrel Todd's #14 late model modified racer?
• ...see Tyrel Todd sitting in his car - notice the detached steering wheel.
• ...see some of the open wheel modifieds waiting to race?
• ...see the Todd racing team's mechanic making last minute checks on the #14 store?

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