Photo Credit: Iowa Public Television

As many are cleaning up from the destruction left behind by mother nature, the Iowa Corn Indy 250 is gearing up for a weekend of excitement. It might seem a little insensitive on IRL's part to proceed, but this might actually be just the right event to bring people together outside of the catastrophe. Before you are too critical of the series do note that the Indy Racing League, IndyCar Series and Firestone Indy Lights teams are combining efforts and will be making a donation of $60,000 to the local Iowa chapter of the American Red Cross. Also at Iowa Speedway during the event, there will collection points for those wanting to donate and if you are not at the event the Iowa Speedway Foundation is making www.race2recovery.com available for online donations. Race2Recovery has been established under the Iowa Speedway Foundation, a non-profit tax-exempt entity.

Okay, here's your preview for this weekend.

Iowa Speedway is 250 laps/218.75 miles (352.044 kilometres) of racing activity. The track length is 0.894 miles (1.439 km) and 2007's best lap speed was 182.920 mph (294.381204 km/h) by Helio Castroneves.

We cannot highlight the last years top 10 because only seven finished the race. The race was slow going with 67 laps under caution and only 183 under green allowing for 13 lead changes between 8 drivers. Here's the 2007 top seven: Dario Franchitti, Marco Andretti, Scott Sharp, Buddy Rice, Darren Manning, Ed Carpenter, and Sarah Fisher.

Feel free to leave your thoughts, any words of support for the people of Iowa or predictions for the Iowa Corn Indy 250.