Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
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For an old guy and his wife on their first time to Indiana Sprint Week it was a learning experience about the race tracks, the state of Indiana, and the passion that the sprint car fans of that state have for their cars and drivers.
First off, I had been checking in on Indiana Open Wheel trying to get any information about seating or reserving seats at the track.

This is when I first encountered the "blanket policy" for seating. Even on that web site there was a bit of good and bad about letting people put down blankets a couple of weeks before an event. Either I have a kind face or people felt sorry for an old person but I never had a problem with seating especially for shooting video. Bryan Clauson's grandmother asked me if I needed a seat at Kokomo. "Just sit on the end of the row and you will be ok", she said.

Also discovered Terre Haute and Brownstown have too many posts to video from the covered grandstands. Every place else was ok. You also want to sit on the back straightaway at Haubstadt. The sun is behind you which makes it a whole lot cooler.

I thought we had a lot of farming in Kansas and Missouri. Indiana has more. The top 2/3's of the state is pretty flat and one farm after another. The bigger the metropolitan area the worse the roads were. I-70 was rough and very busy. Gas City and Kokomo are in smaller communities. Terre Haute quite a bit bigger.
The southern 1/3 of the state is hilly with some pretty streams with canoeing and good fishing. Brownstown and Bloomington are within these hills. Bloomington has red clay which sets it apart from the other tracks. This was also the closest the series came to being rained out. Lightning was in the area as the A-Main was being run.

The fans in the Hoosier state are very knowledgeable about their sprint car racing and racers. They are also very passionate about their favorite driver. When their guy was winning or losing they would yell and scream to the top of their lungs. They also booed some of the favorite drivers on occasion.

All in all it was a good experience, saw some great racing, and not so great racing. The wingless sprint car series that travels the hiway's and byway's of Indiana still holds the spirit of what sprint racing has been in this part of the country for years, hard core racing wheel to wheel, side ways in the corners, drag race to the next corner and do all over again.

Thanks to all who gave me a seat, took time to talk with me, and shared the dust and dirt of Indiana Sprint Week. Mike Kraft - Cheese Works Video's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhVMU0yofmg

Great video........looks like you guys had a great week.

Thanks for posting your videos Mike--I always enjoy them. What did you think about Lawrenceburg?

I am really looking forward to the Sprint Bandits coming through Missouri and Kansas next month for their tour and wish that USAC would schedule a few races in the area too.

Hope you will be shooting at the Midget Race at Osborn on August 1. I won't be able to be there again this year unfortunately but last year the video you shot at least gave me an opportunity to see what I had heard about.

We are proud of the results that Mike Kraft got on his first time out at Indiana Sprintweek.His shots from the grandstand give the perspective that a fan gets and were really helpful in following the action.

Mike is a "homeboy"from the K.C. area and is a cousin of one of our local heroes,Charlie Kraft who raced back in the day.

We were concerned that the dust might prevent him from getting any clear shots of the action at Brownstown,but that was not the case.We had never been to Brownstown before and didn't know what to expect but it proved to be the best race of them all !

Indiana does it good when it comes to racing and in particular they show the wingless Sprint Cars at their best.So from a SHOW-ME we just want to say : APPLAUSE,APPLAUSE,APPLAUSE !

Bud's Bride