The year 2020 was to mark the 5th anniversary of one of the greatest spectacles in dirt track racing and one of the industry’s largest attended events, the Arizona Sport Shirts Gateway Dirt Nationals presented by O’Reilly Auto Parts at the Dome at America’s Center. However, continued COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines have forced the event’s postponement set to take place December of next year.

Event management and dome officials have been working diligently to try to develop a plan that St. Louis area health officials would be in approval of and ultimately allow for the event to take place as originally scheduled. However, after multiple different scenarios and proposals, it has become inevitable that the event will not be able to take place and has now officially been postponed to December of 2021.

“We expected to have to adopt a reduced building capacity/seating arrangement, enforce mask mandates, provide health screenings and practice social distancing, but found out quickly that the St Louis area health commission expects much more, including several different factors completely out of our control” Said the event’s promoter Cody Sommer.

Since COVID-19 struck 2020 as a global pandemic, St Louis has had strict parameters on any events indoors and/or outdoors. Although Missouri as a state has been relatively “OPEN” for some time, St Louis has not been and has not seen a public ticketed event with over 1,000 people yet take place. 

“We worked so hard to try and make this happen, it is something we all look forward to doing each and every year.  We put together several different plans, reduced capacity/less fans, suite guests only, reduced competitors, heck we even looked at and developed a concept with no fans inside the building at all. Although some of those plans seemed possible at first glance, they ultimately were ruled out when we learned that those plans coming to fruition would rely on several different St Louis region COVID numbers to reach certain lower levels… unfortunately those levels have not got to where they need to be and are actually now starting to go further in the wrong direction” Sommer added.

The 5th annual Arizona Sport Shirts Gateway Dirt Nationals presented by O’Reilly Auto Parts will now take place next year, December 2nd – 4th, 2021.

Fans, guests and competitors…

All tickets purchased through Ticketmaster and/or any suite reservations made with the Dome at America’s Center for the 2020 event will remain eligible for use for the rescheduled 2021 event. This being said, be sure to hold onto any reservation information you may have. Current ticket and suite assignments will remain the same for 2021 for individuals that choose to hold onto their tickets and/or suite reservations. The Gateway Dirt Nationals will be offering ticket holders the opportunity to obtain full refunds. Refund requests for the 2020 event will be accepted beginning Monday, October 26th at 8am Cst, and ticket/suite holders will have 30-DAYS to request the refund from that date. If a refund is requested, the corresponding seat and/or suite assignments will be released and made available for the 2021 event dates. Refund requests will not be accepted after the 30-day period and all remaining reservations will be rolled over into the 2021 event dates and seating/suite assignments. To request a ticket refund from Ticketmaster, please initiate a “refund request” under your reservation within your Ticketmaster account, or call (800) 745-3000. Suite holders will receive an email from the Dome at America’s Center with step-by-step instructions on how they may obtain a refund if desired.

Competitor registrations that have been submitted for the 2020 event will remain eligible for the 2021 event dates. These reservations will also provide a complimentary pit pass to the driver for the rescheduled 2021 event, unless the competitor chooses to cancel their reservation. Registration cancellations and refund requests may be submitted via email to info@GatewayDirt.com. Similarly, to ticket assignments and suite reservations, driver registration refunds may be requested for up to 30-days from this coming Monday, October 26th.  Refunds will not be accepted after that 30-day deadline, and any registrations remaining at that time will be rolled over into the 2021 event.