It rises high above the endless Iowa countryside, an iron testament to what racing institutions can be. It has roots deep in open wheel racing, and is today one of the icons of the sport.

Yet, for one weekend each year, the gates of Knoxville Raceway swing open to welcome the best of the Dirt Late Model world. Over the past eight years the Lucas Oil Late Model Knoxville Nationals have grown to become not just an event of crown jewel status, but one of the destination weekends of the entire MORE

The rain began to pick up, and lightning flickered in the distance. The Friday night World 100 qualifying session had been postponed to Saturday afternoon and a lingering group of stragglers slogged along, looking over their shoulder as a rumble of thunder echoed.

It was an unforeseen development for my carefully-planned project. The idea was to spend the night with a team in the Eldora Speedway infield, recording the events of the most important overnight of the year. After all, I mused, MORE

He is 91 years old now, and those eyes have seen a lot of living.

It is World 100 week, and nobody knows this more than Earl Baltes. He’s the man who, 41 years ago, changed the course of racing by creating an event that would ultimately give structure and definition to an unstructured and undefined form of motorsports. Things were never the same after that September afternoon in 1971.

He was hell on wheels back then, a cyclone of energy and purpose. No dream was too ambitious, no obstacle too MORE