Rain postpones World of Outlaws show at Jacksonville Speedway

Morgan County fans headed to Jacksonville Speedway on Friday night lost one of the biggest races on the calendar after rain and thunderstorm threats forced the Hy-Vee Perks 40 to be postponed. World of Outlaws and track officials made the call after weather models showed more than a 90% chance of heavy rainfall at the quarter-mile dirt track at the Morgan County Fairgrounds, along with the possibility of severe storms.

The postponement matters because this was not a routine date. The World of Outlaws had 37 drivers entered for the event, and the series said Jacksonville Speedway delivered its 2024 race of the year. David Gravel led the 2026 standings at the time of the postponement, with Carson Macedo, Sheldon Haudenschild, Michael Kofoid and Donny Schatz rounding out the top five, giving the Jacksonville stop marquee value for fans who expected to see the tour’s biggest names in one of its tighter venues.

Jacksonville Speedway’s official site said the Hy-Vee Perks 40 was postponed and that a makeup date would be announced in the coming days. The Speedway asked fans to hold their tickets, preserving the chance for a full crowd when the race is reset. That is important in a city where the track has been a staple of Jacksonville’s competitive spirit since 1949, and where the venue’s own fan guide said walk-up grandstand tickets were already sold out before the weather intervened.

The delay will ripple beyond the grandstands. A full World of Outlaws night brings ticket sales, pit passes, concessions and travel spending into Jacksonville, and the event’s scale underscores the blow: the Speedway says its grandstands have more than 1,600 two-foot spaces, excluding VIP reserved seats, while the World of Outlaws lists seating capacity at 1,400. The fan guide also put pit passes at $50, with teams receiving up to four pit passes for $40, a sign that the postponement pushed back not just a race, but a busy night of spending around the fairgrounds and nearby businesses.

For the series, the schedule moved on quickly to Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Indiana, on Saturday, April 18, 2026. For Jacksonville, the race remains postponed, not canceled, which keeps the event, and the economic lift that comes with it, on the calendar once a new date is set.