Sprint Cup stars like the flavor of dirt track at Eldora

Prelude to the Dream

Tonight, Tony Stewart and 27 of his racing friends take to the high banks of Eldora Speedway for some camaraderie, competition and, most of all, charity.

The seventh annual Prelude to the Dream — featuring drivers from NASCAR’s Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Truck series, IndyCar and NHRA — straps the all-star roster into 2,300-pound late models cranking out 850 horsesepower to raise money for children’s hospitals in Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas and St. Louis.

During a recent media blitz Stewart took some time to discuss NASCAR adding Eldora to its schedule, a driver he’d like to see at the Prelude and other topics.

Two of the drivers Stewart enjoys watching most are the NHRA’s Ron Capps and Cruz Pedregon, two guys used to their races lasting about four seconds at speeds of 300-plus mph.

Capps, whom Stewart once described as looking like a windshield wiper as he tried to keep his car straight going down the frontstretch, finished 20th last year and has a career-best fourth in 2006. Pedregon was 25th last year and sixth in 2009.

As for the driver he’d most like to see run the Prelude?

“I think it’d be fun for Danica Patrick to come run,” Stewart said. “A lot of the Indy Car drivers. There’s still a lot of stock car guys that haven’t run it that I’d like to talk into coming. It’s hard to get it into the schedule and their schedules don’t allow it.”

There’s that ever-so-slight chance that could change if Stewart and some of his fellow Sprint Cup drivers had their way. Stewart is all for NASCAR coming to Eldora, or another dirt track, as part of its regular Cup schedule.

“The ARCA series runs Springfield (Illinois State Fairgrounds) and DuQuoin State Fairgrounds in Illinois every year, and both are successful events. It can be done,” he said.

NASCAR isn’t rushing to get back to its roots, but there’s another set of drivers eager to get involved with the Prelude. Some professional dirt late model drivers — those who take to the track Friday and Saturday in the $100,000-to-win Dirt Late Model Dream — have expressed interest in racing the Prelude.

That, Stewart said, presents its own set of challenges and changes what the Prelude is all about.

“You’d have to start them a lap down, because they would definitely have the advantage,” he said. “It’s all about bringing in guys who aren’t used to running these cars a lot and letting them not be in a situation like we have on the Cup weekends. It’s nice to come and just be drivers for a day. That’s what it’s all about. ... You don’t want to add variables to it that are going to make it lopsided.”

And it’s important, of course, to remember what the Prelude is all about: Raising funds for charity. The event has raised more than $3 million for the Victory Junction Gang Camp, four military-themed charities and now eight children’s hospitals.

“(Visiting hospitals) is a very humbling experience. It makes you sit back and look at what’s going on in our lives and realize we don’t always have it as bad as we think we do,” Stewart said. “These kids are fighting a lot harder than we are.

“The hard part is we can only do four hospitals a year. The hard part is knowing there are legitimate applications that are coming in that we’re gonna have to turn away. The good news is at the end of the day there are four children’s hospitals that benefit from it.”

Tickets still remain for today’s Prelude. The event typically draws about 20,000 spectators to the legendary track that’s often called dirt racing’s version of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway or Daytona International Speedway.

“Every year when we go there and see that many people, it’s an awesome sight. It’s one thing to watch it on the Pay-Per-View side, but if you get a chance to actually go and see it in person it’s worth going to,” he said. “There’s nothing like the sight, the sound, the smell of going to a dirt race. There’s nothing like it.”

And when the checkered flag drops on another successful event — that means few wrecks, no rain and plenty of fun — Stewart can finally exhale.

“The first thing we do (when it’s over) is grab cold, adult beverages and celebrate,” he said. “By the time the event is over, there are a lot of people who worked a lot of hours to make that event go off well.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2400, ext. 6991, or gbilling@DaytonDailyNews.com.