Eagle Raceway Reschedules Icebreaker Challenge

By Jason Orth

Eagle Raceway announced today it is delaying the start of the 2006 season one week due to a scheduling conflict between its season opening Icebreaker Challenge and I-80 Speedway's ASCS Spring Sizzler, both of which feature the 360 sprint car class. Both races were scheduled for Saturday April 8. Eagle Raceway's open house will now take place the afternoon of April 8 (moved from April 1), with the Icebreaker Challenge running on April 15.

After both tracks released their schedules sprint teams were faced with a tough decision on which race to attend. Several Eagle Raceway regulars are competing for the ASCS Midwest Region championship, which (except for the April 8 date) didn't conflict with Eagle's Saturday night schedule. However, the Icebreaker Challenge is an Eagle Raceway point show and many of those same drivers are running for the season points championship at Eagle. In February, Eagle Raceway added pressure when they upped the Icebreaker purse to $2000 to the winner with double points, and stated the June 8 Jim Eckley Memorial sprint race would be an invite-only format with preference given to those who attended Eagle Raceway events. The two races, only 10 miles apart would have fragmented the 360 sprint class car count, where recent declines have been a concern for promoters in the region.

There are conflicting accounts of who scheduled what and when as evidenced in the Eagle Raceway post and NRP/I-80 GM Tom Gutowski's post on DirtDrivers.com where he stated that NRP had discussed the situation prior to scheduling with Eagle Raceway promoter Roger Hadan.

Text From the Eagle Raceway website: "Eagle Raceway has been the Saturday open wheel show in the Midwest for many, many years. Somehow, an open wheel show has been scheduled against Eagle’s Ice Breaker Challenge. With these two tracks being so close to each other, the Eagle Raceway management has decided that it would be in the best interest for our great fans and racers, to move our practice from April 1st to April 8th running 3:00-6:00 pm. Also, our opening points night for all four classes, the Ice Breaker Challenge, will be rescheduled on April 15th with racing at 7:00 pm.

We at Eagle Raceway, hope that the double scheduling of open wheel racing in this area on Saturday nights, will not happen again. We would never consider scheduling a Late Model race on a Sunday. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and hope to see all of you at Eagle Raceway this year for the most exciting 1/3 mile action anywhere."