What is a "touring car?"

[Greg Amy]

Greg, I was referring to the HPT race last August with only 14SRF and 2SM.

Heartland Park? I'm surprised they got two...

Sadly, MidDiv is not a useful indicator of the health of Club Racing.

GA, who lived in Texas Region and raced in SWDIV and MidDiv for many years ('90 SSA MidDiv champ, baby!), was in teh very first HPT National, all before deciding to move to New England for better racing pastures...and got stuck here. Oh well, there's always retirement...and I do miss Hallett a lot.

[Matt93SE]

Heartland Park? I'm surprised they got two...

Sadly, MidDiv is not a useful indicator of the health of Club Racing.

GA, who lived in Texas Region and raced in SWDIV and MidDiv for many years ('90 SSA MidDiv champ, baby!), was in teh very first HPT National, all before deciding to move to New England for better racing pastures...and got stuck here. Oh well, there's always retirement...and I do miss Hallett a lot.

Agreed.. SWDIV has a strong SM, SRF, and FM contingent, but almost zilch for IT and GT. Reynolds is in Dallas area and the Saurinos in Tulsa, so Prod is wrapped up. (That said, the Saurino boys are looking to go open wheel and the cars so the throne will be vacant for FP soon.)

There are several tracks in the area, but only a couple that are capable of supporting a Club Race due to lack of facilities/grid/paddock space. We are losing TWS in a few months, but there is talk of another track being built nearby. If it comes through, there will be 9 tracks within a 6 hr tow- 6 or 7 of which could support a club race. Then there's the help of year-round racing if you don't mind racing in a swamp in August! Money is good here with industry and oil, so I'm at a bit of a loss why attendance is lacking here.

[Greg Amy]

Though we're treading off the beaten thread path on this one...here was the state of SWDiv/MWDiv in 1989. This was an email I sent to a guy in regard to the history of my SSA Shelby CSX...

Pulled up the logbook...it was issued 11/11/88, first event
11/12-13/88 at Texas World Speedway. Bill Saunders drove the car in
the SCCA driver's schools the weekends of April 8th 1989 at TWS and
then the following weekend of April 15th at Hallett Motor Speedway,
the car's 4th and 5th race weekends. He apparently passed the second
school, as he finished 1st in the SCCA Regional on Saturday. That
first year the car also raced at Hutchinson Aerodrome in Kansas (an
ex-WW2 Navy airfield), the very first SCCA National at the then-new
Heartland Park in Topeka, another ex-WW2 airfield in Big Spring TX,
the Ponca City (OK) Grand Prix July 4th weekend (probably where that
photo came from), again in Big Spring, won the Solo 1 National
Championship in Showroom Stock A at Hutchinson Aerodrome, finished 23rd
in the 1989 SCCA Runoffs at Road Atlanta, then topped off the year at
the "Bass Ackwards" (reverse direction) annual race at Hallet in
November and the "Early Bird Enduro" at Texas World Speedway in
December.

And it did all this while being driven to each race with tools and
tires in the hatchback...busy year!

[Matt93SE]

Hallett gets one SCCA race a year now. TWS gets 1-2, but they're closing forever in May.. Never been to HPT but it's obviously still open. The rest of the tracks and even SOLO sites are long gone.. :\

...Back to your previously scheduled topic...