Kansas Gets a Little SCCA Runoffs Love

[JohnBM01]

Kansas. A state with a great college basketball team (Kansas University (recently beat Kentucky in a thriller)). A state with a good college football team (Kansas State University (except for this season, being 4-7)). Kansas is also home to a tough-as-nails road course with Heartland Park Topeka. This track is probably better known for the drag strip here, but if you've played "NASCAR Racing 1999 Edition," you'll know this track is pretty tough. It's been so long since I played this game, but I think it has 12 or 15 turns and has some pretty slow corners. In fact, it almost seems like a street course just without the walls. Also, the last race I remember seeing on TV from there is NASCAR Craftsman Trucks (perhaps 1999). To those of you in Kansas, you'll have to like this as this new home of the Runoffs will give Kansas a little more exposure.

Anyhow, how do you feel about HPT being the venue for The SCCA Runoffs for about three years based on the contract deal?

Personally, I like the deal. HPT (Heartland Park Topeka) is perhaps the Sears Point of the Midwest. This track keeps you on your toes and kind of favors a high speed setup for the drag racing front straight, but also favors a good setup for the tricky corners. So I think it needs speed and good handling to win here. If you want to make a statement, do it at this tough track. I just can't wait to see the Sports Racer classes, and one of my favorite classes, GT-1. And if you never heard of SCCA's GT1 classes, these machines are insane American beasts! They're widebodied and pack 700hp. It's about the closest thing to Trans-Am, maybe even Trans-Am. Anyhow, what do you think about this?

 

[kart racer]

A new place for the run off's? Sounds good to me.The change will do them good.A new track will make for closer racing,so bring on the races.

 

[BlueRex]

thats great because its not that far from me!

 

[kart racer]

👍 Enjoy,you lucky dog.

 

[Layla's Keeper]

I'll tell you exactly how I feel.

Mid-Ohio is one of America's HISTORIC road courses. It's in the same pantheon as Watkins Glen, Laguna Seca, Mosport, Elkhart Lake, Sebring, Sears Point, and Portland.

The Mid-Ohio circuit is one of the most challenging in the world. To this day, the Carousel, Keyhole, and Madness confound chassis men and test the absolute limits of drivers. Braking from the long uphill backstraight into the esses has always separated the men from the boys. Moving to the flat, wide, featureless, and forgettable Heartland track is an insult to the history of the SCCA and the prestige of conquering the rolling Lexington, Ohio hills.

 

[B.I.R.M._USA]

Oh, wow, I loved Heartland Park Topeka in NASCAR Racing 1999. Was it pretty accurate from the sim to the real life version? I also loved watching the Craftsman Trucks attack it, that was neat.

 

[JohnBM01]

Damn shame NASCAR Trucks p***ied out of road racing. Hell, I loved it when they raced Portland and Heartland Park Topeka. People talk about Darlington being the "Track Too Tough to Tame" (I save that designation for Le Mans or Mid-Ohio), Heartland Park Topeka is about as tough as these racing trucks. I would have loved to see them continue racing at this track.

Heartland Park Topeka is known for maybe one thing- the drag strip. Almost every turn at HPT is ownage to your race car. It's not technical, it's not really scenic, it's just purgatory. Your race car already have sinned coming here, and this purgatory will make the race car its b*tch.

 

[Layla's Keeper]

Well, honestly you want to talk about a truly difficult track to race on you'll have to look up the old Langhorne racetrack in Pennsylvania. It was the dirt oval on which Mario Andretti made his Indy car debut.

Of Langhorne, Andretti said "I've never raced on a tougher track than that Langhorne oval. My debut at Langhorne in Indy cars was as if I'd started my first race in Formula One at the Nurburgring. The track was that scary."

The track didn't get any easier when they paved it in 1971 (after all, by that time the infamous Offenhauser Mallard of Jim Hurtibise had proven the absolute limit of front engine technology of the day and rear engine Indy cars weren't any good on the dirt) and it remained a blindingly fast and tight course that taxed and more often than not got the better of masters like Bobby and Al Unser, AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, Gary Bettenhausen, Swede Savage, Johnny Rutherford, and Gordon Johncock.

Or, for those of you without a degree in American Racing History - doctorate Midwestern Open Wheel (a joke, by the way) I could simply say Spa-Francorchamps.