There’s a new track coming to Clay County Fair Speedway in Iowa. It’ll be built within the confines of the 3/8-mile clay oval, but it’s not a smaller oval. Instead, it’s a figure 8 course.
“Figure 8 racing is very popular,” Clay County Fair Speedway promoter Trent Chinn said. “The Primghar Jaycees track — just a half hour from here — is very successful. If we have success, it is possible there might be more figure 8 races in our future.”
Chinn will bring in Joe Vais to assist in operations of Clay County’s figure 8 races. Vais heads up Vais Promotions that promotes 17 figure 8 races this year among seven tracks in Nebraska and six in Iowa.
“Crowds are large — 1,500-3,000 people in Nebraska, up to 2,500 in Iowa,” Vais said. “The attraction for the driver is the adrenaline rush — there is so much excitement going through that center.”
Clay County will be a bit different, though, than many tracks that host figure 8 races.
“Most of the current figure 8 tracks are old oval tracks that aren’t hosting oval racing anymore,” Vais said. “I am hopeful, really hopeful, that figure 8 racing will be regularly scheduled there because it is a successful, currently operating oval track.”
Vais said that interest in the Clay County Fair Speedway figure 8 event came from near and far, with drivers from Nebraska, Minnesota and South Dakota declaring their desire to run there. The figure 8s at Clay County will run four classes: open rear wheel, super stock, front wheel drive stock, and the Primghar Class.
The new track is one part of the improvements underway at the Spencer, Iowa, facility. That includes a renovation of its 7,640-seat grandstand, built nearly 100 years ago in 1931. Delays in construction have postponed the season opener for the oval until June 8.
“We are in phase 1 of the grandstand renovation,” Chinn said. “It is a half-million-dollar improvement project. The materials are all here now, and there will be new concrete walkway areas, new booths for handicapped access, new stairs, a guardrail and a catchfence on the frontstretch. Phase 2 of the project will begin after the season in the fall.”
Before that phase begins, however, the track will debut the figure 8 track on Sunday, September 20.
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
