A half-mile high-banked clay oval in western Ohio, built by a bandleader in 1954 and now the home of dirt late model and sprint car racing's biggest weekends.
Built by bandleader Earl Baltes in 1954, the 0.805 km (0.500 mi) clay oval near New Weston, Ohio hosts the World 100, the Dirt Late Model Dream, the Kings Royal and the Eldora Million. Tony Stewart has owned it since 2004.
Eldora Speedway is a half-mile, high-banked clay dirt oval in New Weston, Ohio. Opened in 1954, it has become the centre of dirt late model and sprint car racing, with the World 100 and the Kings Royal among the most valuable events in short-track racing.
What is Eldora Speedway?
Eldora Speedway is a 0.805 km (0.500 mi) clay oval with steep banking. It lies in the village of New Weston, Ohio, to the north of Rossburg, and its website claims a capacity of 22,886 in the permanent grandstand, with unlimited admission to the grass hillside.
By the Dayton Business Journal's reckoning, the permanent grandstand and VIP suites make Eldora the biggest sports venue in the Dayton area. The track has been nicknamed the Big E and the World's Greatest Dirt Track.
A bandleader's clay oval in rural Ohio that grew into the richest dirt racing weekend in North America.
How did Eldora begin?
Earl Baltes, a bandleader with no racing background, built the track in 1954. He had bought the Eldora Ballroom from a previous owner two years earlier, where he offered weekly dances and music, and he had been drawn into racing after watching a crowd at New Bremen Speedway. He was born on 27 April 1921 in nearby Versailles, Ohio, and the ballroom's music was gradually dropped as the track grew.
The track opened as a quarter-mile oval. Two years later it grew to three-eighths of a mile, and by 1958 it had reached the half-mile length that later became the national standard for USAC events.
USAC sprint cars began racing there in 1962, and the track quickly became one of the favourite venues on the circuit. The first Eldora 500 was won by Orville Yeadon in August 1965, with 33 sprint cars racing 500 laps. Larry Cannon won the following year's race, and Don Nordhorn took the last one in 1967. By then Baltes was busy promoting other tracks, and the 500-lap format faded away.
For many years the pit wall read Home of the Sprint, but the track began as a home for jalopy cars, then for new and stock cars, before the modern dirt late models took over.
What is the World 100?
The World 100 puts drivers through 100 laps of dirt late model racing, traditionally on the weekend after Labor Day. Baltes launched it in 1971 with a winner's purse of $4,000, a figure that many thought must be a printing error. Bruce Gould won the inaugural race, and the event is widely credited with launching modern dirt late model racing.
Each year the winner's share was meant to rise by $1,000, a promise Baltes made from the start, and the event now draws the biggest dirt late model fields anywhere. The 2017 edition paid a record $425,800 and drew the biggest crowd in the track's history. Crowd numbers are rarely released, but the Tony Stewart Foundation's 50/50 raffle is sold by hand at $1 a ticket, and its winner's share that Saturday passed $38,000.
Billy Moyer holds the record for World 100 championships, with six. Donnie Moran has four, and Larry Moore, Jeff Purvis and Scott Bloomquist have three each.
What is the Dirt Late Model Dream?
The Dream, a 100-lap feature, has been run each June since 1994 and carries a $100,000 first prize. It is the richest event in short-track racing outside the one-off Eldora Million, which paid $1,000,000 to Donnie Moran in 2001.
Scott Bloomquist has won the Dream eight times for $100,000 each, and his record includes a sixth win in 2013. The race became a full three-day programme in 2013, with Thursday, Friday and Saturday race nights. Jonathan Davenport has been the most consistent recent winner, taking the race in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. In 2020 Tim McCreadie won the closed-door Stream Invitational, and in 2021 Brandon Overton won both main events.
In 2020, with no spectators allowed because of the pandemic, the event was renamed the Dirt Late Model Stream Invitational and paid $50,000 to the winner. It was available only through a pay-per-view viewing package.
The 2014 World 100 showed how competitive the feature could be. Scott Bloomquist had taken the lead, but he was penalised and sent to the back for having a plexiglass window net fitted to his driver's side window. He charged through the field and won anyway.
How did the Kings Royal grow?
The Kings Royal ranks among America's largest sprint car events, and the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series sanctions it. It was first run for $50,000 to win in 1984, and its winner's share had reached $175,000 by 2019.
Eldora's connection to the World of Outlaws began in 1978, when the series launched and Baltes booked several events there. The 1978 season finale at Eldora crowned the inaugural champion, Steve Kinser, who was proclaimed King of the Outlaws. The track has remained a mainstay of the series since. The partnership gave the fledgling series credibility and momentum when it needed both.
The Kings Royal is now a three-day event, with prize money and awards of more than $385,000 and regional satellite events in the week before it. Those satellite races build toward the main event. The race draws a big field and a full house of sprint car enthusiasts from around the world. Promoter Ted Johnson, a Texan, had gathered outlaw sprinters chasing bigger purses, and Baltes saw that Eldora's high banks suited them.
In 2013 the track reformatted its two biggest dirt late model events into full three-night programmes, and the Kings Royal adopted a three-day format in 2016. The Historical Big One offered a $100,000 prize to the winner, a level sprint car racing had not reached before, and it ran from 1993 to 2003 before returning in 2022. Brent Marks won the 2022 edition and Logan Schuchart won in 2023.
| Event | Founded | Top prize | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| World 100 | 1971 | $425,800 record purse in 2017 | 100-lap dirt late model race |
| Dirt Late Model Dream | 1994 | $100,000 to the winner | 100-lap dirt late model race |
| Kings Royal | 1984 | $175,000 to win from 2019 | Sprint car race, World of Outlaws |
| Historical Big One | 1993 to 2003 | $100,000 to win | Sprint car race, returned in 2022 |
How did the 4-Crown weekend start?
The four-division show began in 1981, when the USAC official Johnny Vance of Aristocrat Products suggested a single show with all four of USAC's divisions. The event reached its 37th running in 2018, although it has not run every year. In some seasons it was rained out and not rescheduled, with the Mopar Million taking its place. From 1981 until 2006 the card held four different races on one night.
When USAC dropped its stock car division, its place was taken by dirt late models, and later the UMP modifieds replaced the late models. Later, a Friday show featuring the World of Outlaws joined the card as attendance slipped. Two of the event's most memorable performances came from Jack Hewitt, who swept the three USAC divisions, and Kyle Larson, who did the same on a night with no fourth division on the card.
Tony Stewart changed the format in 2007 to a two-night weekend, with World Racing Group cars on Friday and USAC cars on Saturday. That version was named the Chevrolet American Revolution Weekend. The event is now part of a wider weekend of activity, including vintage car displays and racing for hundreds of young midget competitors at Little Eldora.
Did NASCAR race at Eldora?
NASCAR's truck series raced at Eldora from 2013 to 2019 in the Eldora Dirt Derby. The inaugural race, the Mudsummer Classic, was held on 24 July 2013, and Austin Dillon won it, finishing ahead of several well-known names in the field.
NASCAR's director of safety said the track met NASCAR's guidelines even without SAFER barriers. Dave Blaney raced with his son Ryan, and Truck Series veterans such as Ken Schrader and Ron Hornaday Jr. also took part. The Derby was cancelled in 2020 because of state restrictions on large gatherings, and the Truck Series dropped it in 2021.
Before that, the Prelude to the Dream ran as a Wednesday undercard from 2005 to 2012, with visiting NASCAR names in borrowed UMP cars. Kenny Wallace took the first edition, and its proceeds went to charity. Kyle Busch won the final Prelude in 2012. A rain-out in 2006 was made up later as the Prelude to the World, which Stewart won after climbing the catch fence to celebrate.
In 2007 the Dream returned to a live crowd with pay-per-view coverage, and Carl Edwards beat Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon to the win before celebrating with a backflip off his car onto the dirt. Eldora gave more than $800,000 to charity that year.
In 2008 Stewart took the fourth annual charity race in front of roughly twenty-three thousand fans, and his foundation then gave $1,000,000 to the Victory Junction camps. Jimmie Johnson won the 2010 Prelude, and Clint Bowyer took the 2011 edition.
The 2001 rescheduled Dream carried the Eldora Million, a $1,000,000 prize that went to Donnie Moran, who became known as the Million Dollar Man. The one-off remains the richest short-track race in history.
Who owns the speedway now?
Three-time NASCAR Cup champion Tony Stewart bought the speedway in late 2004 from Baltes. When Baltes retired, the state of Ohio renamed a stretch of Highway 118 the Earl Baltes National Highway.
In 2011 Stewart hired Roger Slack, a former vice president of events at Charlotte Motor Speedway, to run daily operations as general manager and promoter. He had been a protege of the promoter Humpy Wheeler, and under him the speedway kept up its capital programme, with luxury suites atop turn three and a video board in turn two. Recent improvements have included catch fencing, attenuators, a widened pit road and a helipad for the CareFlight service, and an Infield Care Center with on-site Level 1 trauma and emergency room staff. Stewart co-founded the Superstar Racing Experience, a stock car series that raced at Eldora in 2021, and he won that event himself.
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