Welcome to the renewal of In The Groove

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes or for this crowd like the return of a Top Fuel dragster after a full engine rebuild, the In The Groove blog has returned. In the coming months and during the course of the 2011 season we hope that you check back often as we want to use In the Groove as a behind the scenes look into the season and many of the events at O’Reilly Raceway Park. We are busily preparing for the coming season and many new items are in the works for the coming year. In case you missed some of the recent announcements they are:

ARCA Returns to O’Reilly Raceway Park during the course of Kroger SpeedFest on July 28th. The night will be called the Thursday Night Triple Header and will feature USAC Midget and Silver Crown Series along with ARCA during the night. This marks the first time ARCA has raced during the same night as the Midgets and Silver Crown. This is also the first time ARCA comes to the track since the mid-80s. Nine-time ARCA Champion Frank Kimmel hasn’t had the chance to race at O’Reilly Raceway Park in his career and was champing at the bit at the press conference and said he couldn’t wait to take to the track.

Also filling out the oval schedule will be the return of USAC Thursday Night Thunder featuring the USAC Sprint Car series at O’Reilly Raceway Park. From May through October the future stars of racing will be putting their best foot under the summer lights. Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman all used USAC to further their racing career at O’Reilly Raceway Raceway.

The drag strip will see a fair share of new events including Friday Nite Rage a thrilling series of events dedicated to heads up door slammer racing. There is already a tremendous ammount of buzz regarding these events and they will be short on rules but long on excitement and thrilling racing.

The 2011 O’Reilly Raceway Park schedule will be announced soon and new for the season will be a downloadable version of the calendar in a .CSV file or iCal for Apple users. This will allow you to download the full calendar directly into your calendar and give you direct access to all the information about the season.

During the course of the year we plan on using In the Groove as a resource for our fans and will have guest bloggers, rules information, driver profiles, tail gaiting tips, recipes and much more on the page.

We hope you have a Happy Holiday season and we will be talking at you in January.

NHRA Lucas Oil race coming to a close

The NHRA North Central Lucas Oil race is rapidly coming to a close and only a few cars remain to take to the track.  It has been a great weekend of racing with temperatures in the mid-80's and a great car count. 

The track has been in great condition and much of the credit goes to a great drag crew we have.  Chuck D. and John D. inspect the track after each run and sweep off any debris or clean up any fluid that has gotten onto the racing surface.  

Also remember early in the season when I showed you all this picture and we talked about how rubber was yet to get onto the track?  

Well take a look at it now!  You can see where each tire track heads down the track and the rubber that it lays down.  This helps the driver have the best traction possible and helps them remain 'In the Groove.'

The IMSTEA High Mileage challenge will be at the track in the morning and you will be surprised about what cars are on the oval in the morning. 

NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing series at O'Reilly Raceway Park

The NHRA Lucas Oil drag racing series is at O'Reilly Raceway Park and we will be putting up photos and information up from the event as the weekend progresses.

Today was a test session and let racers from across the area get valuable track time leading up to the race.

Video from the test can be found on our You Tube channel.

The 2009 season starts

The first bracket race of the weekend took to the track on Saturday at O’Reilly Raceway Park and watching cars go down track in a competitive setting is always thrilling. The racers spend so much time and effort massaging their cars in the off season trying to get that extra tenth of a second out of it. Watching them put that hard work to good use is good to see. Congratulations to Chris Stephenson, Marty McKinney, Patty Hertenstein, Chad Isley, Joseph Boyden, Collin Richardson, Scott Tuttle and Kieffer Simpson for getting the first win of the season under their belts.

The first couple of races of the season are also a reunion of sorts as people are able to see each other and catch up after the off season. These racers want to do everything possible to win each week but they are very good friends to each other off the track. They help each with parts, make dinners together and spend countless hours at the track and strong friendships are forged. As the season goes on we will look further into some of these relationships and the strong bond these racers share.

More photos from the weekend can be found the O'Reilly Raceway Park Flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/photos/21955465@N05/

The green flag is in hand...

Welcome to In the Groove, the official blog of O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis. For those that don't know we are one of five drag racing facilities owned and operated by the National Hot Rod Association, and was built in 1960 and has presented organized racing events since 1961.

From March through October, the facility hosts more than 120 dates of racing on three tracks, a quarter-mile drag strip, a .686-mile paved oval and a 2.5-mile road course. Home to drag racing’s biggest event, the NHRA U.S. Nationals over Labor Day weekend, the drag strip runs more than 50 days of point-to-point action, from national events to street legal community programs.

The oval track draws racing’s biggest events, including annual visits from the NASCAR Nationwide, NASCAR Camping World Series and annual USAC races. The road course provides a home for several racing sanctions, such as SCCA, while providing an ideal resource for driving schools, corporate outings and open-road tests for professional drivers.

We are set to begin the 2009 race season and uring the course of the year we will give you a behind the scenes look at the facility, the fans that attend events, the racers, the staff, fun facts about the facility and more!