Shadybowl Speedway offers unique challenges

By Ken de la Bastide

In has been years since the Kenyon Midget Series visited the uniquely shaped Shadybowl Speedway in Ohio. The series returns to the three-tenths mile oval on May 21 on a track where most of the current competitors have never turned a lap.

The track has a downward sloping corner coming off turn one and climbs up to turn two. Trey Osborne recently tested at the track which is the closet to his home since the series raced at the now closed Columbus Motor Speedway. “It's really rough and different,” the most recent winner in the series, said. “It has a lot of up and down character to it. “You enter high and then cut down in the corner,” Osborne said. “The third and four corners are a lot different than one and two.”

Dameron Taylor said he knows nothing about the track, but believes his father, Tim, raced a modified there in the past. “I don't think there is an outside wall on part of the track,” he said. “It looks pretty wide, so we should have good racing like at Montpelier. “It's probably a momentum track and it looks like you won't be driving straight very much,” Taylor said. He expects to figure out the racing line pretty quick since it's a pavement oval. “The first time we went to Columbus, I picked that up pretty quick. Set fast time and won the feature,” he said.

Colin Grissom, the 2020 champion, will be competing in the 75 car normally driven by Ayrton Houk. “I've never race at the Shadybowl, but I've been there a lot,” he said. “It's shaped like a Pringles potato chip,” Grissom laughed. “It's a wide track and we should be able to race two or three wide.”