The 7/8-mile Iowa Speedway, site of tonight’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race, has earned a solid reputation as one of America’s top short tracks. But while the bullring hosts NNS, Camping World Truck Series, and IZOD IndyCar Series races, it has yet to gain the one thing every major-league track wants: A prized date on the Sprint Cup schedule.
And it would appear that the Newton, Iowa facility may have to wait a little longer before they can be up for serious consideration. A bid to help fund improvements to the speedway with an $8 million grant from the state of Iowa fell short earlier this summer; the state’s Senate approved the grant, but it didn’t make it out of the House.
According to an interview this week with USA Today’s Andy Hamilton, track designer and minority owner Rusty Wallace has had multiple ideas on track additions that can help it support a potential Sprint Cup race. However, he admitted that “we’re going to need some help” in order to pay for those things.
“We know that NASCAR doesn’t give anybody anything until everything is in place,” Wallace said to USA Today. “It’s [the grant failure] a little bit of a setback because we wanted to put the infrastructure in place to prove to NASCAR that we’re ready for this race and we’ve got it handled.”
“Now they’ve got to go on our word and our goodwill of what we’ve done in the past.”
Wallace believes his track, which he says brings in $60 million annually for Iowa’s economy, may have to go about buying a date from another track in order to get around Sprint Cup’s very compacted 36-race schedule.
“The way things work, it seems like the schedule’s full, and it’s all about buying dates,” he said. “You’re going to have to buy a date from somebody else.”
Iowa has hosted the IndyCars since 2007, and NASCAR’s Nationwide and Truck Series since 2009.
As for tonight’s NNS event at the facility, qualifying for the U.S. Cellular 250 will go off shortly after 5 p.m. ET. The 250-lap race will follow at 8 p.m. ET.
