BOONE, Iowa — We had a great day in Boone for RVTV, but we’re not the only ones saying that. South of town at the Boone Speedway there’s a crowd that dwarfs the one we had at RVTV. The Super Bowl of Iowa dirt track racing.

“An event like this takes an enormous amount of space. A lot of property. We’ve got 80 acres of land that we work with right here,” IMCA Racing President Brett Root said.

Short tracks with sticky, black dirt and loud cars, bigger than those at Knoxville, sliding around the tight turns and thrilling the thousands of fans who’ve come from 33 states and five Canadian provinces to see them.

The track has been in Boone since the late ’60s and it’s only gotten bigger and busier. In the ’90s, it became home to the IMCA Supernationals and that made this place an instant destination.

“It’s our Super Bowl for our racers. Then if there’s one race that I look forward to, it’s this one. And if there’s on race and they want to win, it’s this one. Now, we’ll have 1,130 cars this week,” Root said.

Some 6,500 race fans are just south of town, along with thousands of drivers and crew members. Add those to the tens of thousands over the hill in Ames Saturday for the CyHawk game, and that’ll make Highway 30 the busiest road in Iowa this weekend.