Out-of-state INEX drivers don’t make trip to Hawkeye Downs

CEDAR RAPIDS - Hawkeye Downs Speedway was supposed to be in the national spotlight of Legends car racing last night. The INEX Championship qualifier event was supposed to bring in more Legends cars.

It was a night of 'supposed to's” for Hawkeye Downs.

But take a three-hour, 40 minute drive to 151 Speedway in Columbus, Wis., and another INEX national qualifier race was being raced at the same time last night.

Warren Ropp, the Iowa Legends co-dealer, said he waited as late as he could to schedule the event to make sure he had out of state racers coming to the track. Ropp was notified otherwise earlier last week.

'I had three possible dates that we could schedule our original (race), and then we went with this one,” Ropp said. 'When I sent my reminder out last week, I was informed that they had scheduled another event.”

Hawkeye Downs fair board member and racer Kevin Korsmo said he couldn't blame the Wisconsin natives for wanting to drive 15 miles rather than the 200 miles to Iowa.

However, the fact the other Legends racers weren't going to be seeing out of state competition was unfortunate.

'As any racer, we like to compete against the fellow states,” Korsmo said. 'We had a strong commitment from our Wisconsin guys … but this is the one night where we were going to get some guys in who we haven't raced against before.”

While the extra cars didn't make the trip, that didn't dampen anyone's spirits.

'Our Legends division is so strong it can stand on its own,” Korsmo said. 'We're going to be 20 strong by midseason, of our own guys. And for (our) track, that's a good thing.”

Korsmo said growing the local racers and keeping them around is important for Hawkeye Downs, even if they aren't bringing in out of state names each week.

Tim Goettsch won the main event, with Korsmo second. Goettsch and Korsmo both qualified for the INEX Championship.

'The reason we ran so strong was because of the crew chief,” Goettsch said. 'We made some changes during the off-season and we really got dialed in.”

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