The season within a season attracts the best drivers and fans to the Hoosier State
The first rule of race club is that you absolutely talk about race club. After all, how else are you supposed to find it?
Indiana Midget Week is one of grassroot racing’s best-kept secrets. You’ve got to dig deep to uncover it, but what you find there is truly spectacular.
Driving down Indiana State Road 18, surrounded by endless farmland and the occasional rustic Midwestern whistle-stop, it’s hard to believe you’re looking for a race track that is set to play host to two of the most recognizable race car drivers in the country.
With a capacity of only 3,200, Montpelier Motor Speedway is equally unassuming, a quarter-mile buried in corn fields that could draw comparisons to the Field of Dreams. It was built in 1903 as a horse racing track and converted for motorsports use 12 years later — and indeed they came.
Montpelier served as the Indiana Midget Week opener this summer, an event headlined by national stars Kyle Larson and Rico Abreu. Always looking for any chance to return to his open-wheel dirt roots, Larson flexed his muscles and executed a perfect race by setting fast time, winning his heat and emerging victorious in the night’s 30-lap main event.
But the most remarkable aspect of that Tuesday night was just how non-invasive the fans were towards the two national stars. In any other setting, Larson especially would get mugged by fans clad in No. 42 gear, wanting an autograph or selfie.
At Montpelier, fans literally have no barriers separating them from Larson, nor did the driver need the protection. At home in a dirt track pit area, the 25-year-old isn’t ‘Kyle Larson, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series contender,’ but is instead ‘our old friend, Kyle.’
“I think fans really enjoy it,” Larson said. “They can go hit a lot of good racing throughout the country every day of the week … I feel like the fans, I mean it doesn’t matter what day of the week it is there, they are going to have a lot of fun and cheer on some good racing. That’s all they care about.
Indiana Sprint Week is a personal club of grassroots racing aficionados, noted for their respect of the game more so than the star-chasing efforts associated with big-time auto racing. Short track die-hard Dan Margetta made the trip from Wisconsin, to experience a discipline not prevalent in the Badger State.
“Not only did you make new friends but you left feeling like you discovered something special,” Margetta said. A place no one really knows. The USAC guys are racers too. It was neat to see crews working on their cars in the hotel parking lot only to load up and head down the road to the next event.”
Midget Week itself is a championship within a championship, taking place during the first week of June, in the aftermath of the Indianapolis 500. The series of six races in six days takes place within the second month of the USAC Midget National Championship, but also crowns its own champion by the end of the week.
For the uninitiated, Midgets are the cars most famous for their use in the famous Chili Bowl Nationals held each January. Each track scheduled for Midget Week is within a two-hour centralized radius of Indianapolis and includes Montpelier, I-69 Gas City Speedway, Lincoln Park Speedway, Bloomington Speedway, Lawrenceburg Speedway and Kokomo Speedway – each of them carrying the same Hoosier hospitality and charm.
“Another fun aspect of going to these new tracks is visiting the towns and talking to the local fans at the track,” Margetta said. “I know Bloomington has the IU Hoosiers but if not for the tracks, I would have more than likely never have visited there or Putnamville. The people I talked to seemed genuinely happy we came to visit and were glad to provide some history on the place and what to watch for. It’s a community.”
Current NASCAR Xfinity Series contender Christopher Bell won the week-long championship back in 2013 and says he most looks forward to the one-off entries, which sometimes draws from the dirt trackin’ hot beds of Australia and New Zealand.
“Midget week has a unique atmosphere about it,” Bell said. “The fields are always stacked and that brings out packed grandstands. It’s a fun week because you get a bunch of overseas race fans in town or the occasional driver, and it just creates great competition.”