By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)

Managers of the Knoxville Raceway are getting five more years to accumulate a state tax break of up to one-point-eight MILLION dollars to finance facility improvements. Iowa lawmakers originally approved a sales tax rebate nearly a decade ago, letting the track keep state sales taxes charged on services and goods sold at the track.

The rebate was set to end in 2025. “We all know what happened. COVID came along and that really disrupted things,” Senator Julian Garrett of Indianola said on the last day of the 2023 legislative session. “Some of their big races they were not able to have and the ones they did have had very limited attendance, so they’re way behind in what they would have normally had in the amount of money collected from these rebates.”

A state law that goes into effect Saturday, July 1 extends the state sales tax rebate for the Knoxville track until 2030.

“In a way, you could say it’s not really changing anything,” said Garrett, who represents Knoxville in the legislature. “It’s just giving them a little more time to collect the money they would have been able to collect by 2025 had it not been for COVID and some of these other things.”

One of them was a dispute with the Iowa Department of Revenue. It prevented the track from claiming the sales tax rebate for a couple of years.

Knoxville’s population of about 7500 will swell to more than 30,000 during each of the four days of racing for the Knoxville Nationals in August. Senator Bill Dotzler said the races attract sprint car racing fans from around the world.

“These are cultural events. They mean something,” Dotzler said during Senate debate. “People in Iowa love racing.”

Weekly stock car racing began in 1954 on the Marion County Fairgrounds, but a few years later lighter weight sprint cars began racing on the track. The first Knoxville Nationals were held in 1961.