Tony Stewart Wins Prelude To The Dream At Eldora Speedway

Despite a late-minute surge from folks like drag racing champion Cruz Pedregon, who proved quite adept at turning circles at Wednesday night's fourth annual Old Spice Prelude to the Dream charity race at Eldora Speedway, the winner ended up being the man that brought the racers there — Tony Stewart. We're assuming we'll have more in the morning — including hopefully some pictures. But at the moment, we're too busy rioting in downtown Royal Oak over the Red Wings Stanley Cup victory. Full list of finishes below the jump. More »

Eldora Speedway's Only Three Hours Away...

...and the Prelude To The Dream race starts at 7:00 PM tonight. We could totally make it down to the Tony Stewart-owned track. And believe us, we seriously thought about taking a run down to the track from Detroit. But frankly after covering it last year, the thought of spending the next week wiping down the dirt from our laptop again is making us reconsider the idea — even if it's a blast watching Nascar drivers getting schooled on the dirt-track by the local soil-grinders. But — maybe we'll snag it on Pay-Per-View this year instead. Hey, the money goes to a good cause, right? At the very least we'll try to get some updates tonight — in between watching Game Six of the Stanley Cup Finals. Jeez, why am I feeling like we're going all Deadspin over here? Whatevs — check out the sweet on-dirt action from last year below. More »

Prelude To The Dream: Pretty Practice Pictures

The race is about to start and unless I can find another dust- and dirt-free area to live-blog from with an outlet, y'all may not be hearing from me for a little while. But I did get out next to the dirt track a few minutes ago, and there's not much more to say other than...damn, those are fifty-five pretty pictures of some pretty drivin' on dirt. Enjoy, and check out the rest of our Prelude to the Dream coverage. – Ray Wert More »

Prelude To The Dream: Juan Wreck Watch?

I feel like the shot above should be captioned "My name is Juan Pablo Montoya, Tony Stewart is behind me, prepare to die!" Sorry, just had to get that one out of my system. Anyone want a drinking game idea for tonight? How about taking a drink for every lap Juan Pablo Montoya finishes tonight? Wait. Scratch that. We just heard him say "I'm not even sure where or how to shift these cars." It'll probably be over too quick to get drunk. Anyone have any other drinking game ideas? Sorry, after just walking through the driver scrum, we're kinda going to be bored before the race starts. For the meantime, here's our scrumtastic gallery. – Ray Wert More »

Prelude To The Dream: What To Watch For Tonight In The Dirt At Eldora Speedway

Well, we're now here in lovely Rossburg, Ohio in the lovely media room trailer outside of the track. We've already had a chance to get credentialed and although we were supposed to sign some release stating we wouldn't be able to take photos of the track — we may not have had the chance to sign it — wink, wink. So we're going to try our damndest to bring you the fun as we see it. Already we're hearing all sorts of fun stuff, and we've even heard from our track insider their five key points we've got to be watching for tonight. So, in no particular order — other than, you know, the top one — just because it'll be fun to watch:

1.) Juan Pablo Montoya — here for a good cause, NEVER raced on dirt.

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Jalopnik Gets Dirty With Nascar Tonight!

This afternoon I'll be taking a drive down to Rossburg, Ohio, the home of the Tony Stewart-owned Eldora Speedway, for an evening of late model stock car dirt racing action. Eldora's a local track that turns into a boomtown each year for the "Dream Week" — a multi-day extravaganza of mud culminating in Saturday's "Dream," a feature race that's basically the biggest thing around in the world of late-model dirt track racing. But we won't be there for the "Dream" race this Saturday, because there's already more than enough outlets around covering the real racing. Instead we'll just be there for tonight's annual Nascar charity 30-lap dirt race called the "Prelude To The Dream." See how they've done that — they've appended "Dream" with "Prelude." Aren't those Nascar boys smart? Anyway, we'll be down there in the mud this evening live-blogging Nascar racers Bill Elliott, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte, track-owner Tony Stewart join up with other auto racing stars such as Juan Pablo Montoya and even drag racers Ron Capps and Cruz Pedregon. The last two might actually have the same turning-is-trouble problem as the Nascar folks — especially if they decide to run the race clockwise tonight. So check back here at the Prelude To The Dream tag throughout the evening and into the night as we'll be bringing you fresh and muddy coverage straight from the track. – Ray Wert More »