If NASCAR came to Eldora, Tony Stewart's grin would be too big for this picture. (Getty)
KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- As NASCAR looks for new venues for the Camping World Truck Series schedule, Tony Stewart's Eldora Speedway, a half-mile dirt oval in Rossburg, Ohio has been mentioned as a possible site for the 2013 Truck schedule.
On Friday, Stewart said that the possibility of the series coming to Eldora had, in fact, been brought up, and that he would be ecstatic if NASCAR came to his short track.
"But the rumor about the trucks, trust me, I would be ecstatic if we could get any NASCAR race at Eldora, that would be great," Stewart said. "But, I've talked to NASCAR, they've been looking at all kinds of tracks. You know, it's been brought up in conversation but that's about as far as it's gone right now."
A Truck Series race has never been run on a dirt track. The ARCA Series runs on dirt tracks in addition to paved tracks of all sizes and styles, and according to ARCA owners in this article by SB Nation, the transition between the two surfaces isn't all that complicated.
One race that won't be held at Eldora in 2013 for certain, however, is the Prelude to the Dream, Stewart's annual charity race that features drivers from all different racing disciplines in a late model race. Kyle Busch won the eighth Prelude earlier this year, but because of changes to the format of The Dream (the prestigious late model race that follows the Prelude), the Prelude is taking the year off.
"It takes a ton of work to put the Prelude on and we're changing our format for how we run The Dream that weekend and making it a three day weekend with that series, so we're trying to focus on that a little bit more and some changes that we think are going to be better for our late model race," Stewart said. "So we just needed to take a year off while we focus on that and make sure we don't get overloaded for that."
