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Sights, sounds and smells of Indiana Sprint Week

Jordan J Wilson
IndyStar
The stands at Kokomo Speedway were filled for Indiana Sprint Week.

Cars, trucks and RVs descend upon seven Indiana towns across a 10-day span, carrying spectators wearing eclectic, colorful T-shirts. The barbecued smell of concession hot dogs and hamburgers overrules the passing-by odor of cigarette smoke. The oppressive heat loses out to a staunch love for the sport, as if to say fans cannot and will not be moved. The further into the night it gets, the more subtle vrooms build into clamor. All people in sight — the drivers, the crews, the announcers, the fans — are  united in their passion for “raw” and “classic” dirt-track racing.

This is the scene of the 29th annual Indiana Sprint Week — which wrapped up a week ago — a seven-race, 10-night event of short-track racing across one of the sport’s most popular states. IndyStar reporter Jordan Wilson took a closer look at several slice-of-life stories happening throughout the event.

Delay in action

Adam Mackey was worried about the race fans. Hundreds of them had flocked to Terre Haute Action Track, carrying in lawn chairs and beer-packed coolers for a down-and-dirty fourth night of racing, but dark and grumbling storms had been soaking the track all afternoon. By 4:30, a muddy puddle sat atop the large stretch of the dirt straightaway running along the front of the grandstands.

There would be no race July 13, raising the question of whether Sprint Week's No. 4 race would run at all this year.

“We had the whole mindset going into it that we were going to race,” said Mackey, the Track Enterprises operations manager responsible for the race. “But tonight was going to be a losing battle.”

Still, Mackey felt he had to tell the fans something. It was Sprint Week, and the biggest event of the year for the Action Track. Some local fans keep this race marked on their calendars all year long. Mackey didn’t want to leave them disappointed.

Two years ago, rain spoiled the No. 3 race in Lawrenceburg. Storms also postponed the 2015 feature in Bloomington until late August, but fans would not wait nearly as long this year.

As rain continued to fall, Mackey persuaded the fairgrounds president and manager, currently hosting the annual Vigo County Fair at the same site, to reschedule the race for July 17 at the same time — effectively extending Sprint Week by one night.

Of the more than 100 pit bands sold, only one fan asked for a refund. Now, Terre Haute was the final stop, the grand finale.

“And the best part, the makeup counts (in the points standings),” Mackey said.

No ordinary name

Another car tears onto the track for hot laps at Lincoln Park Speedway in Putnamville, but on this one the race announcer makes sure to emphasize the last name:

“Jarett Aaaaaan-dretti!”

In Indiana especially, the Andretti name is synonymous with racing greatness. Usually Andretti is said in reference  to Mario, an Indianapolis 500 winner. Other times people mean Michael, the three-time IndyCar champion and CEO of Andretti Autosport, or his son Marco, an   IndyCar Series driver.  Or Michael’s cousin John, who drove in NASCAR and Indy cars.

Rarely do people mean Jarett, simply because being a full-time driver is relatively new to him. The son of John Andretti is only two years removed from his first full season of competition in the USAC Sprint Car and Silver Crown series.

He admitted it can be difficult at times to find his own identity as a driver under the heavy expectations of his family’s legacy.

“You tell everybody that everybody’s name is the same when you get out there,” Andretti said. “You’re fighting for the same piece of real estate, same paycheck, it’s all the same.”

Investing in that mindset helped Andretti win 2014 USAC National Sprint Car Rookie of the Year, but adjusting to the lifestyle was another story.

Even growing up in a racing family like the Andrettis couldn’t prepare Jarett for the demanding, everyday grind of working to get the car ready for the racetrack. Once in season, Andretti said he sometimes goes months without taking a day off.

“People think you just go out and drive, but it’s all part of a bigger picture,” he said.

Jerry Coons Jr. during Indiana Sprint Week at Kokomo Speedway July 22, 2016.
Frolic Bar & Grill

Gary Parker laughs when asked why he and his friends have their RVs parked so far down the road from the designated area for campers.

“We play our music pretty loud,” the Plainfield resident says with a Crown and Coke in his hand. “They put us down here so we won’t bother anyone.”

When the racing action ends July 14 in Putnamville, the party rages on at the foot of the hill, where Parker and his friends are grilling out, drinking up and singing country tunes long into the warm mid-July night. The group is known as the Frolic Bar & Grill — or just “The Frolic,” as its members call it — and have spent well over a decade building a reputation as the post-race party for every night of Sprint Week.

Frolic reaches out to tracks ahead of time to work out spaces for them to park their brand of fun, which Parker said is fairly easy to coordinate. Putnamville is one of the easiest, according to Parker, making it one of their favorite destinations.

The drivers embrace the Frolic, too.

At one point, Dave Darland, the 2007 Sprint Week champion, arrives on an ATV to chat up some of the Frolic and make sure the party is still on for after the feature later that night. Several other drivers also pay homage, among them USAC sprint car points leader Brady Bacon.

Pinned on the wall inside Parker’s camper are pictures of dozens of other drivers who have partied with the Frolic over the years. One picture shows the lime green helmet NASCAR driver Kyle Larson wore back when he competed in the International Midget series in 2012, on which he bore the Frolic’s logo.

For Parker and many of his cohorts, Sprint Week is the let-loose vacation they look forward to each year. But even those less committed, such as Greencastle's Tracy Picker, find time to squeeze one night of Frolicking  into their schedule.

“It’s amazing how once you’re around it, it immediately feels like it’s a big family,” Picker said.

Kyle Cummins stood on the car after winning the feature at Kokomo Speedway during Indiana Sprint Week.
New team, new record

Gravel pops beneath his tires as Chad Boespflug rolls up to his trailer in his black sprint car, caked in mud and fresh off the track from his heat race ahead of the July 15 feature — race No. 6 in Sprint Week — at Bloomington Speedway.

He gets out and disappears into the trailer, leaving the cleanup job for 15-year-old AJ Parker of Plainfield. A member of the crew coaches Parker on how to clean from a perch in the trailer. The more mud he cleans, the more the neon-yellow detail starts to shine.

“Our little mud-scraper,” Boespflug chuckles, admiring his small-but-sturdy race team that a year ago didn’t exist.

Boespflug, who won four features in 2015, decided to bet on himself this past winter when he formed his own racing team, looking for “more control over my own destiny.”

Pulling together a crew was the easy part. The hard part is balancing racing with his full-time job as a mechanical project manager for The Dalton Groups in Indianapolis.

“Everybody on this team has a full-time job,” Boespflug said. “Right now, I was on the phone with work today, back and forth, and trying to get a race car ready. Fortunately, they let me take off work to do this.”

Already Chad Boespflug Racing has claimed three wins this season, most recently at Eagle Raceway in Nebraska. He has yet to win a race this year in Indiana but found another way to leave his mark on Sprint Week, running his qualifying lap in 10.737 seconds to set a new single-lap record at Bloomington Speedway.

“It adds a little pressure,” Boespflug said, “knowing that you’re that good and that now you’ve definitely got to earn it.”

The best of luck

Gary Fisher doesn’t see dirt-track races as often as he used to when he lived in Kokomo. Now residing in Georgetown, Texas, he gets one, maybe two, chances each summer when he returns to visit his son.

As luck would have it, the rainout July 13 set up a sort of “nostalgic” return home at one of his favorite speedways for Sprint Week's final race July 17.

“That’s the way we used to run it years ago,” Fisher said. “On Sunday afternoon.”

Fisher raced sprint cars for 27 years, from the time he was a senior in high school. On several occasions he was named track champion at Kokomo Speedway, but Terre Haute Action Track was always a venue at which he loved to race.

Few tracks still allow spectators to post up along the fences and watch the races from the infield, but Terre Haute is one place that preserves the tradition. Along these fences is where Gary finds his son, Derek, and his family, enjoying their Sunday night with lawn chairs, a cooler and a football.

Sitting close to the fence, 9-year-old Brody Fisher watches with wide eyes next to his parents as another driver drifts into Turn 3, then roars out of sight. He knows this place as “the red, white and blue track” from driving it virtually in "World of Outlaws: Sprint Cars" video game on the Playstation 3 at home.

“It’s kind of a niche sport,” Derek said, remembering his time spent around dirt tracks when his father raced. “With some of these local shows, it’s really a lifestyle. It’s all I ever knew.”

People ask Gary if he misses it: the rumble of engines, the heady smell of fuel, the thrill of a good chase.

“Yeah, every day,” he answers.

But on a summer night like July 17, with the beating sun starting to tuck behind the trees and family on all sides, watching the best drivers around whizzing by in quick flashes of color, does it get any easier?

“Oh yeah. Nothing else like it.”