Stewart has $1 million to give away Thursday night and is determined that his track in Rossburg, Ohio, will be in the best condition possible for the return of The Eldora Million. “I’m just thrashing,” Stewart told The Associated Press on Wednesday afternoon by phone, the sound of him moving from various trucks and tractors in the background. “We’ve only had two events so far this year because of weather, and we’ve got to get the track ready to give this money away.”
Preliminaries for the evening were expected to include about 130 cars. The winner of the Thursday night feature will take home an incredible $1,002,022, which is the second-largest prize money in racing after the Indianapolis 500. Marcus Ericsson won the Indianapolis 500 on May 29 and took home $3.1 million of the $16 million record total purse; a week earlier, Ryan Blaney won the NASCAR All-Star race and took home $1 million.
The Eldora Million is a half-mile clay oval in western Ohio that hosts a 101-lap late model dirt track race. Stewart’s event will pay more per mile than any other race in the US. More than three times as much as Ericsson made each mile—$9,842—will be earned by the winner. Mileage pay for Blaney was $5,333.33. Eldora handed out $1 million only before, in 2001 when the late Earl Baltes controlled the track. It was Donnie Moran who won the $1 million prize.
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