The Dome at America’s Center
The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Missouri has hosted a wide array of events over the course of its history. The Rams franchise used the 66,000 seat facility as the home of their NFL contests from 1995 to 2015. Also, an NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four won by the University of North Carolina was held there in 2005.
Further, a Billy Graham crusade was once conducted underneath the domed roof of the stadium in 1999 and Pope John Paul II held mass in front of the largest indoor crowd in American history when 104,000 people gathered before the pontiff.
U2, The Rolling Stones and the heavy metal band Metallica(a personal favorite of mine) have all entertained fans inside the venue formerly known as the Edward Jones Dome.
Next weekend(Dec. 15-17), the Dome at America’s Center will play host to heavy metal of another sort when the Gateway Dirt Nationals featuring Late Model and Modified cars will compete on a temporary track measuring just under a quarter-mile. The Late Model main event on Saturday will pay $20,000-to-win while the Modified winner on that same night will receive $10,000.
Preliminary races held on Friday night will also offer generous payouts.
But the real a significance of this event is the potential exposure it could possibly bring to a sport that rarely gets this sort of opportunity to display itself in such a high-profile venue. Perhaps the only other times in which Dirt Late Model races have played out in such an arena would be the times in which the Bristol Motor Speedway was temporarily covered with clay back in the early 2000s or when ‘Black’ Jack Boggs won a 1982 Late Model race sanctioned by the NDRA in Detroit’s Pontiac Silverdome.
The Super Bowl of Dirt in the Pontiac Silverdome
The potential is certainly there for the Gateway Nationals to attract large numbers of spectators. The Pontiac Silverdome event in a similar type setting drew 30,000 fans. Also, this is not the St. Louis dome’s first time hosting motorsports. AMA Supercross stages races there on a yearly basis in front of large numbers of enthusiasts for that sport.
Not only does the mere fact that the stadium has large numbers of seats provide the possibility for significant attendance, but the fact that these races will be held in such a well known venue offers the possibility for crossover media exposure for dirt racing. That, in turn, means sports fans who may have never been exposed to this form of racing before may get their first glimpse of Dirt Late Models and Modifieds either by attending the races or from seeing highlights on some sort of sports show. Obviously, that brings about the possibility for new fans to show up at other races on permanent tracks.
Dirt racing, like most other forms of racing, needs to find avenues that will lead to new fans being pulled into the sport. This could prove to be one of those avenues. And the fact that it is being held during the “off-season” only adds to the possibility of premium exposure considering that the event will essentially run unopposed by other races.
The Rams left St. Louis at the end of the 2015 season
When the Rams announced last season that they would abandon the city of St. Louis and the Dome at America’s Center, new uses for the facility needed to be found in order to keep the venue active. Hopefully this will prove to be a good use for the stadium so that similar races such as this can be contested in the future. Such exposure for this event can only serve to benefit all of Dirt Late Model racing.
