ROSSBURG, Ohio — Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series director Rick Schwallie has faced so many trials and tribulations while navigating the national tour’s 2023 schedule that nothing can surprise him anymore.

“We’ve seen it all,” Schwallie said.

But experience with frustration didn’t make Schwallie feel any better Saturday evening at Eldora Speedway. As he stood amid a group of series officials in a chilly, damp pit area after unsafe track conditions forced the postponement of the Carl Short-promoted General Tire Dirt Track World Championship, he had a hard time keeping his spirits up.

“It’s a terrible situation,” Schwallie said, shrugging his shoulders in exasperation at his circuit’s latest bump in the road. “We were dealt things that all you can do is shake your head and say, ‘It’s weather.’ ”

Schwallie and his staff rolled into the weekend with the anticipation of kids on Christmas morning, everyone eager to conclude the campaign in epic fashion with not only a dramatic championship showdown — the inaugural Big River Steel Big Four pitting Ricky Thornton Jr., Hudson O’Neal, Jonathan Davenport and Devin Moran in a best-finisher-wins battle for the $200,000 title — but also the DTWC’s first-ever running at the famed Eldora half-mile. It was set to be a historic, headline-grabbing moment for the Lucas Oil Series.

With each passing day, however, Schwallie’s positivity became harder to maintain.

“We left Batavia (Ohio) on Monday (with the Lucas Oil Series operations trailer), got up here on Monday evening, started working (on banner placement and setup) on Tuesday,” Schwallie said. “It was really nice (weather) on Tuesday, Wednesday was fine, but as we’ve been up here, the forecast (for the weekend) has progressively started to get worse and worse.”

Rain arrived with a vengeance Thursday, an all-day washout that forced the cancellation of the open-wheel modified program that was scheduled to kick off the DTWC festivities. The outlook for Friday’s qualifying program for the Lucas Oil Series and supporting Steel Block Late Models looked more promising with precipitation expected to end by late afternoon, but, with light showers refusing to go away and the track clearly water-logged, by 2:45 p.m. the decision was made to push Friday’s action to Saturday starting at 1 p.m.

Then Saturday brought overcast skies — preventing any rapid drying of the surface — and another burst of light but soaking showers that began just after the start of hot laps and caused a nearly three-hour delay.

“Last night when we went to bed there was a chance of rain (for Saturday),” Schwallie. “We get up this morning and all the weather forecasts didn’t really show any rain, the sun would come out today … and it got us anyway.”

VIDEO: The announcement to postpone the DTWC was made Saturday night prior to heat races. 

Cars returned to the track to hot-lap around 4:30 p.m., but it became clear that the moist, spongy surface had extreme traction — lap times were very fast — and was becoming increasingly choppy with every circuit. Steel Block heats and Lucas Oil time trials were completed before William Rose bicycled and flipped wildly in turn one during the second Steel Block B-main, leading to the postponement of the remaining competition to Sunday starting with hot laps at 3 p.m.

The program was stopped shortly before 9 p.m. — a decision that Schwallie said had to be made.

“I think we would’ve been OK if we were just racing as planned tonight, but when that rain came in (just after 1 p.m.), that was the difference,” Schwallie said. “We’ve practiced and preached safety for a long time, and I hope these guys respect that we don’t want to put them in a terrible position. They’ll raise their hands really quickly and say that it’s a terrible position, but ultimately I want them to go home to their loved ones so it’s a much bigger picture with this racing thing.

“I just feel like there was no doubt it was the right call (to run on Sunday). The racetrack wasn’t wide enough to race on. (Eldora owner) Tony (Stewart) was watching from home and he was communicating with (Eldora general manager) Jerry (Gappens). Rob (Platfoot), the track prep guy, has done a great job, and he’s done all he could do here with what we were dealt. But you walk out on that track right now, and here we are postponed for the night, and it’s softer than East Bay (Raceway Park in Gibsonton, Fla.) would be on its wettest day for hot laps.

“It’s unfortunate, because nobody done anything wrong. It’s the weather, and the weather’s just plagued us all weekend. There wasn’t nothing we could see (with forecasts) on Tuesday to say, ‘Well, this doesn’t have a shot so let’s punt.’ It wasn’t like that at all.

I think we could tell what was happening, but those processes (to agree on a postponement) take a while,” he added. “Even before those (Steel Block) B-mains we were working through those processes of what we were gonna have to do, and unfortunately that man goes and flips his car in the second B-main. You hate that — fortunately he was OK — and that solidified what we had to do.”

Schwallie acknowledged that running Sunday “isn’t great for the fans” who have traveled long distances, noting “it costs the race fans and race teams a lot to stay up here another day.” But there was no other option to provide the optimum conditions for both the spectators and competitors.

“Ultimately, we obviously want to see a real barn-burning race where everybody’s able to race hard,” Schwallie said. “We’re deciding our champion here and I don’t think you could’ve done that on tonight’s racetrack, but that was only a small part of that. The bigger part, aside from that, is somebody’s gotta win this race tomorrow and we need cars finishing the race. If we would’ve ran a 100-lapper tonight, in all seriousness, there probably would’ve been a fuel problem (with the hammer-down racing causing heavy fuel consumption) and we probably would’ve had a half-dozen cars finish (due to attrition). That’s not the right thing.”

While more rain did eventually hit Eldora — some quite heavy — after midnight, Sunday’s forecast was calling for clearing by morning to bring much-needed sunshine. 

“It’s supposed to be sunny, and we’re hoping that at 3 o’clock we’re able to race on it,” Schwallie said. “We’re hoping that they’re gonna have time to do what they can to their track (to dry it), so we have to (start) late enough to give them an opportunity to do that.

“I’d like to see the 100-lapper start just as it’s getting dark, 7, 7:30, somewhere around there, and maybe about 8:30 get it done and everybody on the road.”

And then Schwallie perked up, showing a flash of renewed excitement for what he would love to see become a memorable Sunday at Eldora. 

“Hopefully we’ll have a great race tomorrow,” Schwallie said. “It’ll be a little colder tomorrow, but the sun’s supposed to be out. And at the end of day it’s a really big race, and it’s at Eldora, which is the biggest stage in our sport, and there’s a lot of money on the line. We’re excited to have our finale tomorrow.”