(CLEVELAND, OH) It’s almost time to get dirty for the stars of the American Sim Racing Series, as for the first time in league history, ASRS is going dirt racing.  Words like “cushion, slidejob and tacky” will be added to driver’s vocabulary in 2017.  

Officials have announced that Thursday Night Thunder will return in 2017, as ASRS kicks the dust up on dirt track racing.  Dirt Late Models will be the featured division will special appearances by the dirt Street Stocks and ground pounding Sprint Cars.  In addition to the Thursday Night Thunder program, the Camping World ASRS Truck Series will head to Eldora Speedway for the inaugural Dirt Derby, as the tailgaters hit the high banked clay oval.  It will mark the first time the trucks have been back in the ASRS home state of Ohio since the 2010 season.  

“When iRacing announced they were adding dirt to their simulation, we all laughed and thought it was an April Fool’s joke, but then came the Eldora announcement and that was followed by Williams Grove joining as well and it started to become reality” said ASRS President Jim Foose.  “We immediately went to work on a format that paid respect to dirt track racing formats, and we’ve come up with several ideas along the way before settling on this format” Foose continued.

Thursday Night Thunder began in 2004 with the ASRS Weekly Racing Series at Mansfield Motorsports Park (interestingly enough, Mansfield is returning to it’s rich history as a dirt track for 2017) before the Camping World Truck Series ran Thursday Nights from 2005-2011, a move to Tuesday evenings shuffled the line-up and the Skeeber Flob’s Kettle Corn Pro Series, Super Late Model Tour, Street Stock Challenge and the Open Wheel IndyCar Series all have been a part of Thursday Night Thunder before it was discontinued in 2015.  

A big special event using the dirt cars is planned for the end of November, and could be a two or three day event.  

Information about the American Sim Racing Series is available at www.americansimracing.com