A New Sprint Car Bullring in Kutztown

When the Action Track USA schedule was released earlier in the year, fans were taking to social media quickly to question how full-size sprint cars would race on the Kutztown Fairgrounds clay oval. 

Owner and promoter Doug Rose met those comments by pointing out that the Gateway Dirt Nationals is raced inside a football stadium and has become one of the premier events in the country for super late models, UMP modifieds, and midgets. Other bullrings in the midwest and west coast like Lincoln Park Speedway in Indiana and Ventura Raceway in California have been pointed at as small tracks that have provided spectacular sprint car racing for many years.

Action Track USA during the offseason made surface changes by adding banking and widening the turns while also installing higher walls and fencing to accommodate to bigger cars while also not hurting the thrilling weekly shows that have led Action Track USA to becoming one of the premier small car racing tracks in the country. 

18-winged sprint cars took to the bullring in June which was the advertised feature starting field. Slide jobs were thrown all night through qualifying and feature race action as many Pennsylvania race fans were blown away by the action compared to many big tracks for winged cars in the central part of the state. While there were some rollovers throughout the evening, that is to be expected with bullring racing with everything happening very quickly. A packed house watched a thrilling Sunday night of racing.

The main event came down the wire as Mark Smith in the Mike Heffner owned No. 72 edged out Lucas Wolfe, Tyler Ross, and Ryan Taylor after Smith and Taylor had contact during an intense duel that sent Taylor sideways.

The second test was the USAC East Coast series. They hit it out of the park. 18 non-wing sprint cars invaded the fairground with the touring series. If fans thought it was still too small, Alex Bright proved them wrong by going from the tail to battling in the top five of the main event before spinning out of turn four inside the last ten laps after battling with Damon Paul, Tommy Kunsman, and Nash Ely for many laps.

Briggs Danner and Chris Allen Jr. put on a show throwing slide jobs at each other and battling through lap traffic. Danner in the Bill Gallagher No. 5G would come out victorious in front of a boisterous crowd that cheers Danner on weekly in a SpeedSTR.

A key factor for both events was the surface. Both events provided what every sprint car race should have, and it always seems to disappear during a central Pennsylvania event, a cushion. 

Overall, Action Track USA proved many doubters wrong. A promoter took a chance and it worked quite well. The Action Track team should be applauded for the efforts it took to get sprint cars to the facility. Maybe a USAC National race could take place in the future.