The 2011 crash was east of the pits at the horse oval beside them. The latest guy is pretty lucky to get out, plane looked mangled.
The Gimli crash was during a road race, they used the drag strip as the main straight and cars were lined up to start the race when it came in. Lots of witnesses!
The pilot was familiar with the WW2 airbases and knew where he could find a place to land rather a visual sighting of it first. Google "Gimli Glider" and there are several stories of that.
Probably the wildest recent one was in Iceland during a drag race...