Wednesday, July 31, 2002
County Fair OK with figure-8 race
By Dustin Dow
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Despite the recent death of a figure-eight driver at Florence Speedway, the Hamilton County Fair will go ahead with its scheduled figure-eight race at the Carthage fairgrounds at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
“We've got a lot smaller track than Florence, so our cars go pretty slow,” Fair manager Dick Ingle said. “It's a dirt track, and we wet it down to keep the speeds down. It wouldn't be any more speed than a regular (demolition) derby.”
Florence Speedway owner Jerry King said maintenance workers wetted down the dirt figure-eight track at the Union, Ky., speedway prior to Denny Kleier's death June 29. That wasn't enough to prevent Kleier dying from neck injuries suffered in a driver-side collision at speeds between 30-40 mph.
King canceled the rest of the figure-eight season but kept open the oval track for the remainder of the schedule that ends Oct.26.
Ingle said the Hamilton County Fair has put on a figure-eight show “for the last five or six years.”
The event promoter, T.E. Promotions, Inc., based in Versailles, Ind., puts on about five figure-eight races a year at county fairs in southern Indiana. The Hamilton County Fair is the only Ohio event on this year's schedule.
“I put the rules together for the events,” promoter Terry Eaglin said. “Depending on safety, we change the rules sometimes. I think in the 10 years we've been doing figure eights, we may have had one broken arm.”
Unlike Florence Speedway, T.E. does not require cars have a roll cage, which is designed to protect the driver from the impact of a crash, inevitable in a figure-eight race in which cars crisscross in the “X” intersection. For T.E., roll cages are optional and a steel plate in the driver-side door is required. Florence mandated both.
“The size of the track is a big factor with speed,” Eaglin said. “We try to keep it small.”
Ingle said the track is about 100 feet wide by 200 feet long with two car tires on opposite ends of the track for cars to steer around.
Read about Florence Speedway's decision to cancel figure-eight racing after a driver's death
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