A Fan’s Perspective: The Eldora Kings Royal

I have been a long-time NASCAR fan since I was a little kid back in 2004 and I love racing, however, I never paid too much attention to dirt racing like USAC and World of Outlaws until fairly recently, like last year. Beforehand, I knew about certain names like Kinser and Lasoski. I also knew about the likes of Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Kyle Larson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, among others that came from this background. My friend Michael and I drove up two hours to the Eldora Speedway, a track I’ve never been to, for the Kings Royal event. Both races were run on Saturday, July 17th due to a race scheduled for Friday that got rained out. It was a packed house, the weather had cleared up and there was a big day ahead full of racing.

I only had pit passes to the second race, which this year’s King’s Royal ran has a double-feature, due to last year’s event not being held due to the pandemic. The 37th running was won earlier in the day by Tyler Courtney, who won it in his first try. Both races also featured NASCAR driver Kyle Larson as well as Wild Child, Jac Haudenschild, in his farewell tour sporting the Pennzoil colors. I was blown away by the place as I had been to places like Lawrenceburg Speedway, Florence Speedway (Kentucky), as well as Kokomo Speedway. But for a track like Eldora, Tony Stewart has done an incredible job with the place. I knew as the night went on that the track knew how to put on a show with the pyrotechnics, lawn seating, as well as general atmosphere.

We sat up in this section for those with pit passes in the infield that overlooked the track. It was a fun little fan zone to view the track in a 360-degree perspective that I really enjoyed chilling at and watching the best racers on dirt compete for $175,000 and the crown. During the heat races, the fifth heat race happened to be my favorite, as Jac Haudenschild led the way and won the heat in his final try at the King’s Royal. The crowd went ballistic and it was for a heat race, from a NASCAR perspective, it was like seeing Dale Jr winning a race. The crowd was electric and wanted to see Wild Child get one more win in his swan song season. Donny Schatz won the first heat, Carson Macedo won Heat Two, Brad Sweet won Heat Three after going from sixth to the lead to hold off Kyle Larson, Sweet’s teammate, James McFadden, won Heat Four, Jac Haudenschild won Heat Five like previously mentioned, and Tyler Courtney, who won the other King’s Royal earlier that day, won the final Heat, heat six. There were about over 60 entries for the event, also listed as the largest attendance in King’s Royal history.

Eldora is fast and it’s not an easy track to tame, one instance was where both Madsen brothers, Kerry and Ian, both wrecked and flipped in turns one and two during the fifth heat. Kerry dove down and sent it to pass his brother Ian and ran back up into him, causing them to crash. Both would be ok after the incident.

Anthony Macri went on to win the C-Main, he along with Parker Price-Miller, Greg Wilson, Kraig Kinser, Kyle Reinhardt, and Daryn Pittman all advanced to the B-Main, where only the top four would transfer to the main race. In the B-Main, Logan Schuchart went on to win it with Hunter Schuerenberg, Brent Marks and Jacob Allen went on to advance to the A-Main. Tyler Courtney and Jack Haudenschild led the 24-car field to the green flag for 40 laps around Eldora. The battle early on was back and forth between James McFadden and Tyler Courtney as they swapped the lead back and forth. On lap two, Brad Sweet went spinning but never lost power, as he was able to keep going. However, as the race went on, there was a certain man driving a #57 that was making his way through the field, that man was Kyle Larson. At lap 20, Larson got by McFadden for the lead and never looked back. Kyle Larson would win the King’s Royal, thus making this his first Outlaws crown jewel victory. Larson in recent years has established himself as one of the modern-day motorsports greats and this race helped escalate that even further.

From a fan’s perspective, it was an amazing time and it was something new I got to see. A beautiful, summer, Saturday night of dirt racing at one of the best dirt tracks in America, Eldora. To be able to show up to these events again after all we’ve been through in the past year makes this all so bittersweet. I hope this will make people be more appreciative for what we have after not being able to attend any of these events last year. I got a new outlook on racing and how big events like the King’s Royal are. As a racing fan, I truly believe it’s even better if you get the opportunity to venture out and see all sorts of different racing sanctions. Nights like these can create memories that last a lifetime.