NDRL Bluegrass Nationals postponed

CALVERT CITY, Ky. – The National Dirt Racing League’s Bluegrass Nationals race at Kentucky Lake Motor Speedway has been postponed.

Track co-owner Ronnie Jones said NDRL President John Kennedy needed to know whether the track would be ready for the event, scheduled two weeks away on March 27-29.

“I told him, I just didn’t think we could have the racetrack ready,” Jones said. “The weather just has not cooperated with us. We had one great day [Tuesday] and now it’s blowing and raining again, and we just didn’t want to take a chance.”

The NDRL staged two non-points events in January at Tucson, Ariz., and El Paso, Texas, and opened its championship season Feb. 27-March 1 at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City, Ala. A second race was held March 6-8 at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn.

The Kentucky Lake Motor Speedway program was to be the third on the NDRL schedule. Next up for the series is a one-night event at Pittsburgh’s PA Motor Speedway in Imperial, Pa.

Jones said the track and the NDRL will work to reschedule the event at a later date. No advance ticket sales were made, but Jones said fans who have already made reservations for luxury VIP boxes will be contacted individually.

Jones said he hopes an opening event can be held as soon as Saturday, April 5, but he repeated the desire to not cut any corners just to get the track back into operation.

“If it stays cold and wet, we just won’t be able to get the track ready for racing, and we’re not going to try to race on it until it is ready,” he said.

The 3/8-mile dirt oval has been idle the past three years and has had very limited activity since 2009, which means that the racing surface has to be almost entirely rebuilt.

Jones and Hale purchased the speedway at auction in June for $990,000.

Kentucky Lake Motor Speedway was built by Dwight and Keith Greer and opened in 1997.

“It was one of the best tracks in America,” Jones said, “and we don’t want to do anything but make it even better than it was.”