Free day at Kansas Speedway

There may not be any such thing as a free lunch, but there is going to be free auto racing on Friday at Kansas Speedway. Free parking and free access to the Fan Walk area, too. Earlier this year, officials at Kansas Speedway announced that they are throwing open the gates for their annual ARCA Series race. Fans are invited to drive out and walk in.

What they will see is national-level stock-car racing. The kind of racing that will cost fans $30 or more at places like Talladega Superspeedway and Chicagoland Speedway later this year. In addition to the ARCA activities, fans will also get to see a practice session for Saturday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck series race.

There are several reasons to head to Kansas Speedway on Friday for a free day of auto racing. Here are five:

1 You can touch base with big-time cars for no money out of pocket. Most of the cars in ARCA have seen time in Sprint Cup. Many of the cars on the track Friday were the cars driven just last year by some of the sport’s top drivers but were sold off as that series switched over to the Cars of Tomorrow.

2 Royals fans can escape their baseball depression, which is now setting in.

3 Fans who take in Free Day will come away feeling much better about their family cars. The ARCA cars will get about 4 miles to the gallon.

4 There are plenty of good seats still available, about 80,000 to be exact. If you’ve never seen a green flag drop in front of a pack of stock cars, seen a live pit stop, or watched the excitement of the winner in victory lane, it will give a new meaning to “happy hour.”

5 You can go out and associate with the people your parents warned you about. It is not really dangerous, just don’t feed them, interfere with their love of their favorite driver or wear Jeff Gordon apparel as sunset approaches.