Speedway season starts with Silver Cup
Grandstand will be closed to spectators; pit area open
The racing season is getting the green light to go.
Sprint cars will return to the Silver Dollar Speedway when the 32nd annual Silver Cup gets underway Friday and Saturday.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, fans will not be permitted into the main grandstand. The pit gate, however, will be open for the public and fans can watch the race from the pit area. The pit gate opens at 2 p.m. Masks and social distancing are encouraged by the speedway.
Fans, however, can camp at the fairgrounds for the weekend for $50 a day. According to a press release from the Silver Dollar Speedway, campers will be on the pit road entrance lane on the backside of the fairgrounds across from the RC track.
Hot laps will start at 5:30 p.m. with racing beginning at 6 p.m. The dwarf cars and the winged sprint cars will be competing. Drivers who will be participating include Sean Becker, Andy Forsberg, Tanner and Blake Carrick, Brad Bumgarner, Michael Ing and many more, according to the release.
“We’re happy we get to go racing,” said track announcer Troy Hennig. “We’re very thankful to the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds for allowing us to at least get two nights of racing in March.”
After this weekend’s races, the next event isn’t scheduled until Friday, April 30 when the Speedway will host the Bill Brownell Memorial.
Friday’s race will be the first race at the quarter-mile track since July 26, 2020 when a field of cars raced in front of an empty grandstand. One of the last sporting events to occur in the area before a complete shutdown of sports was
the 2020 Silver Cup on March 13, 2020.
The race can be livestreamed through DirtOvalTV for $24.99 for one race and $39.99 for both Friday and Saturday’s races. The races can be purchased at
https://dirtovaltv.com/.
Without any attendance, the winner’s purse will be reduced by 50 percent. The winner of Friday’s race will receive $1,000 while Saturday’s winner will take home $1,750.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested Thursday that inflation will pick up in the coming months but that it would likely prove temporary and not enough for the Fed to alter its record-low interest rate policies.
His message of wait-andsee patience caused bond yields to jump and stocks to fall further, signaling that investors foresee stronger growth and higher inflation on the horizon. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note had jumped from below 1% at the end of last year to roughly 1.4% Wednesday — and then surged above 1.5% during Powell’s remarks.
Stock investors, too, dumped shares in the midst of Powell’s remarks, in which he suggested that the Fed would need to see both a near-full recovery in the job market and a sustained rise in inflation above its target level before considering a rate hike.
The S&P 500 index ended Thursday with a loss of 1.3% and was showing just a sliver of a gain for the year. The techheavy Nasdaq pulled back 2.1%. Higher yields on government bonds can entice some investors to sell stocks and buy Treasurys instead, thereby forcing stock prices down.
Powell also said the outlook for the economy has improved after three months of weak job growth. But he cautioned that the economy and the job market are still far from fully recovered and that full employment would not be achieved this year.
The chairman also offered no signal that the Fed might respond soon to rising rates on Treasury securities by altering its bondbuying policies. The central bank is purchasing about $80 billion a month in government bonds. Some analysts argue that the Fed could focus more of those purchases on the 10-year Treasury to keep it from rising much further.
“The market was really looking for more of a definitive stand perhaps against what’s happened with yields,” said Lisa Erickson, head of traditional investments at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. “It was looking for more assurance, for example, that the Fed might take action.”
The surge in Treasury bond yields has also forced up mortgage rates. Last week, the average rate on the benchmark 30-year mortgage breached the 3% mark for the first time since July, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac.