The main theme of my book Back to the Futures is risk, and it is appropriate that I close out the one-year anniversary week activities with a post on this topic. Throughout the book, I draw several examples of risk from the world of dirt track sprint car racing, something I have loved since I was a kid growing up on our Iowa farm. Of all the dirt tracks I have been to in my life, the most special one is in the small town of Knoxville, Iowa. There was nothing I looked forward to more than piling into a car with my dad and best friend, Jack Hunter, and heading down the highway on a hot Saturday night in the summer for the races at Knoxville.
So, what is so attractive about sprint car races? I think it is an intoxicating combination of sound, smell, and speed. Sprint cars reach astonishing speeds at Knoxville for a half-mile oval track. Most people are blown away the first time they witness the spectacle. I know I was hooked from a very early age. And of course, the risk is very real in sprint car racing, which is one of the most dangerous forms of auto racing. While safety has improved by leaps and bounds since I was a kid, crashes still occasionally cause the demise of the driver.
Just like risk sprint car racing, risk is at the heart of commodity futures markets, and all markets for that matter. While traders don’t risk physical death by trading in commodity futures markets, they routinely risk financial death. How futures markets harness this risk for the greater good is one of the central messages that I try to convey in Back to the Futures.
I cannot talk about sprint car racing without mentioning the Knoxville Nationals. This is the biggest event in the sprint car world every year. More than 30,000 people descend on the little town of Knoxville, Iowa for the four-day national championship every August. It is the pinnacle of sprint car racing, and my family has been attending the Nationals since the early 1960s. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Nationals in August 2022 with my nephews Reilly and Jordan Vaughan, who picked up the sprint car bug from their grandfather and my father, Jim Irwin.
Sprint car fans are very tribal, and it is almost a requirement to show the colors of your favorite driver. Reilly and I are major fans of Kyle Larson, who is also a NASCAR champion. His nickname, appropriately enough, is Yung Money. The pictures with this post hopefully give you a flavor of what this slice of Americana is like.
Happy racing!
Postscript: The person on the right in the last picture is the man, the myth, the legend himself, Jack Hunter. I can’t tell you how many people who have read Back to the Futures and asked me what happened to Jack. I think what they really want to know is whether Jack survived to adulthood. I am happy to report that Jack is doing fine, and as the picture shows, we met up at the Nationals.
Laurence J. Norton Chair of Agricultural Marketing
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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