Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Why is husets track so bad? Ever since the Rueben's owned it it has been not good. Is it a surface issue or do they not know what they're doing?

To be fair, when the Rubins owned it, people always complained about track prep. I'd say the Rubins got it right about 50 % of the time. I think the people doing the work since then (it might even be the same people) get it right about 50% of the time.

It seems ever since I was young kid if the Heats have a heavy track then the track durning the feature is good.  If the track and racing is good durning the heats then track at feature time is pretty dried out and prob going take rubber.  Guessing it all in the dirt and to get that balance is not easy.  I don't know if adding some clay to it might help.  Sneak into Knoxville in middle of the night and barrow some dirt.  

Many years ago Knoxviile added some dirt and they finally removed it and got more that they knew would work.Also they decided to not have  Reubins do the prep to save money and were happy to get them back. I have done some track prep for tractor and truck pulls plus had a go kart track and not an easy task. We built a new pulling track out of good clay and it was better than old dirt one. Spend sometime on a roadgrader or water truck or wheel packing and you will appreciate the effort put in. When a track takes rubber not everyone wants to wait for reworking but much better racing. Boone Speedway does a lot of farming with sometimes over 10 units with close to 1000 cars over 4/5 days and never rubber and always good racing but takes some time to rework.

What exactly is wrong with the track....

No way I would want track prep job LOL   Can never make everyone happy.  I have no problem with farming the track to have a good race.  I'm sure it would cost way too much money but I'm guessing there is the right combination of dirt that might work with todays tires.  

After spending a week there last year and watching more this year I'd say the dirt is just worn out.  Farming and watering it seems to only last a few laps and then it lays rubber.  It's either extremly wet or extremly dry and abrassive.  There doesn't seem to be much in between.  I don't think it's lack of trying.  i just think it's all the can do with the dirt they have. 

Pretty good odds if there really is a problem Todd has it on his radar just like other improvements that have been made - simply a matter of when to fix it.  

I would take a rubber down Huset's over no Huset's. Thank God that people like Tod exist. 

Growing up in Sioux Falls, I went to Huset's weekly and some of the best features I've seen anywhere happened there. It's always had a tendancy to take rubber but it seems to happen more often than not now. One race takes so much rubber the field needs a new right rear and the next one is a barn burner (Sheldon last year). A little Jackyl and Hyde but I'm happy the place exists even though I no longer live in the area.

I think Gregg Bakker use to do the track prep and did a good job IMO. Is he still doing it?

No track prep expert but from my observations a slick, rubbered up track can provide great racing as long as they save the cushion. Keep watering up top throughout the night if the track is going away. I like a track that's slick, wide and racey anyday over one that's narrow, wet, stomp and steer.

A

Pardon, Are you describing race track or women????

I will never complain about Husets as I love that place.  But I haven't been there yet this year either.  But you bring up an interesting point about the dirt being wore out.  At first that sounds kind of ridiculous as how can you wear out dirt lol.  But something I've wondered since I was a kid is what happens when you rework a rubbered down track?  Obviously the rubber doesn't evaporate into thin air, so I would think that rubber gets mixed in with the rest of the dirt on the track instead of being caked on the surface?  As a kid I wondered if it was like an experiment we did in science class where you dumped salt into water and it would disolve but eventually it wouldn't anymore because there was too much salt in the water.  I wondered if it would ever get to the point of being a rubber track instead of a dirt track.  Anyone who has been to Husets knows about the amount of dust you bring home on your body and car because that's how it is there, so since there seemed to be lots of "dirt" leaving the race track every week but the track never seemed to get lower at least by a casual observation, I wondered if that was happening.  Anyway, dumb thoughts from a 13 year old kid but is this what you mean by worn out dirt?  Because it makes sense in my head.  I assume other tracks have dealt with this?  What is the fix?  Replacing the top 2 feet of dirt?  Replacing all of the dirt?  Is there any getting the rubber out of the race track if that is the problem?  Or am I way off base here?

I'm no dirt expert but I don't think you're off base at all.  Yes that's what I mean by worn out.  There has to be a lot of rubber in the dirt.  Rubber isn't going to hold water very well.  I think that's why it goes from muddy to dry and dusty so quickly.  When the moisture goes away the rubber in the dirt heats up and gets sticky.  That makes tires get hotter and sticky which causes them to lay down even more rubber.  It's a vicous cycle they fight every week.  I don't know how you help it without replacing the dirt.     

Strawser?   Can we get some help on this?

Seriously though, a lot of great points.   I've never been there as my planned trip a few years back was cancelled because the track closed----thanks Chucky.   Sitting in South Dakota can't help the track moisture-to-dryout ratio.  It has to be about as rapid as anywhere.  Also sounds like a lot of truth to the 'worn out' dirt mixed in with the rubber.  It's gotta be tough to hit that balance.  Hope they can come to a solution as I would love to make the trip again and actually see some racing there.  

Horse Shit!, or some other animal manure could be added to the dirt to help it hold moisture.  This has been done at other race tracks, although the smell has been an issue at times.

Interesting theory, makes sense to me...

Maybe AI will help resolve the dirt track puzzle of the perfectly prepped racetrack.

Random thoughts about dirt from a non-expert:
*This is my 40th year of attending race at Husets Speedway
* I think Tod is the 4th owner of the track
*For 40 years they've had good track prep and bad track prep
*I believe that adding manure has been done at some time in the past
*I think some chemical had been tried before- calcium chloride?
*Those dirt particles we wear home could very well be bits of rubber
*They probably have to add dirt each week to compensate for what flies off the track as mud clods and dirt particles
*I've heard it said that the best dirt for a track is clay of some sort
*Clay is very fine particles- finer than sand
*When clay gets wet, it turns to glue and becomes greasy
*I've read where Knoxville gets their clay from a special spot on the Des Moines River
*I've also read that Jackson gets theirs from the same river, 
*Racetracks tend to be the color of the local clay
*Some years back Husets brought in a lot of dirt during the offseason. I recall it caused a lot of problems and they had to remove a bunch of it. The track surface was too elastic and rolled up into big ruts
*Typical Husets farming involves grading off the heavy stuff up top after heat races on a narrow, tacky track
*For outlaw races, they'd grade that heavy stuff down to the bottom
*For weekly racing it seems they just run the eggbeater through the heavy stuff.
*When Greg Bakker did trackwork, he would grade it a lot over a long intermission and usually had a good track for the features
*I wonder if having high banking cause the water to drain differently than other tracks, making it harder to maintain a good surface?
*I also wonder if there is a way to grind the rubber off the top surface of the track, using one of those stought brroms they have on road graders to take mud off of pavement in a construction area.
*People have been complaining about the racing surface since at least July, 1984

Glad someone brought this up. The worn out dirt explanation seems as good as any. My gut feeling is the 30+ minute grader parade on a weekly basis isn't helping increase the crowd size at a Sunday night track. I hope they get a handle on this and soon. If track prep at the High Bank Nats is an issue and fans decide travelling 100s of miles for this big event isn't worth it could be a big problem. Same deal if big time high profile non WoO drivers decide to not come back.

The worst president of my lifetime:
Ronald Reagan

Huset's is one of my 'home town' tracks (along with Jackson) and we've been going there since the 70's.

All dirt tracks are subject to a myriad of weather conditions that affect them throughout the season. Some fare better than others. 

But I sure would say last June's Huset's WoO event was the wildest, unpredictable and exciting I've ever witnessed there - by far:

A driver in 6th place with 5 laps to go with no one dropping out ahead of them, no yellows/reds to bunch cars up, ended up driving their way around those 5 cars in that handful of laps to win $100,000.

Who knows what'll happen this year with even more money on the line!