Forget hard hitting Presidential primaries, did you see the hard hitting IRL cars at the Iowa 7/8ths mile? Wow, the track was gobbling up the IRL stars like they were pieces of popcorn!

The visuals were great and the director had the good fortune of being on Jeff Simmons in-car when Kanaan lost it and took himself and Jeff out of the race.

The high humidity of the track led to visible contrails off the endplates of the rear wings and the action was fast from the beginning.

One captivating image early was seeing two cars split Milka Duno and you can just imagine her pulling her elbows in tighter when that happened.

The short little track seemed to be a handful for the big names. Scott Goodyear opined in the broadcast booth, immediately after Kanaan’s crash, that, “. . . they have to drive the car ‘loose’ in order to go fast . . .” at this track.

And then the restart after that wreck and they try to go four wide! Squeezing Danica Patrick and wiping out half of Team Penske.

The finish of the race came down to a shoot-out in the last twenty laps between Dario and Marco. Another great race!! But, can the IRL afford to come back to Iowa given all the carnage? Who’d of guessed that we’d have a ‘Gladiators of the Grain Belt’ show.