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Club Racing

Amateur drivers duke it out for bragging rights

Every year, tens of thousands of amateur drivers compete in hundreds of "club racing" events from New Hampshire to Hawaii, Florida to Washington, British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Save for the most knowledgeable, few race fans have heard of the obscure road-racing circuits on which they compete: Bremerton, Thunderhill, Spring Mountain, Shannonville, Grattan, Waterford, St. Eustache, La Junta, Mountain View, MidAmerica, Pueblo, Kershaw, Cabaniss, Second Creek, BeaveRun, Mission, Gimli, Gingerman. Occasionally, club races are held on big-name tracks such as Watkins Glen, Laguna Seca, Road Atlanta and Lime Rock, but for every Road America, there is a Roebling Road and an Arroyo Seco.

Anonymity

Among the many reasons for the anonymity of club racing is high insurance costs, which means spectators are prohibited at virtually all amateur road racing events. (For the uninitiated, "road racing" employs sinuous circuits that usually feature elevation changes and always employ both left and right turns of many different radii. While club races are no longer held on actual highways, its heritage can be traced back to events in the late '40s and early '50s that ran on public roads, closed for competition.)

For 60 years the largest road-racing group in North America has been the Sports Car Club of America. Those who attend an SCCA club event after an absence of 15, 25 or even 35 years will find things haven't changed very much. Indeed, they may see some of the same automobiles, not just the same make and model, but the very same vehicles: Austin-Healey "Bugeye" Sprites, original Minis, The Graduate-style Alfa Romeo Spiders, Nixon-era Datsun 510s and 240Zs, Elva Couriers, MG Midgets, MGAs, Triumph Spitfires, BMW 2002s, Volkswagen Sciroccos, Fiat X1/9s. (You might be an old guy if more than six body shapes came to mind when you read that list. You're certainly an old guy if you've driven more than one of them.) Even in the "sports racing" and formula-car classes, chassis were often built in the late '80s or, in the case of Formula Vee, much earlier than that. Some club racing classes prohibit cars built after Bill Clinton became president. Is it club racing or vintage and historic racing? Often that's a distinction without a difference.

Though SCCA remains the largest, there are numerous other groups that also organize amateur road racing events. To name a few: Eastern Motor Racing Association, Formula Race Car Club of America, Midwest Council of Sports Car Clubs, National Auto Sport Association, International Council of Sports Car Clubs, and Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs. This is in addition to marque clubs, such as BMW Car Club of America and Porsche Club of America, that organize racing events. While there are some variations in rules among the groups, there are far more similarities than differences.

Class Acts

A vast number of classes have long been a hallmark of club racing. SCCA crowns national champions in some two dozen classes. In addition, there are nearly that many "regional only" classes. Moving from those closest to unmodified street cars to pure-bred racecars, SCCA classes can be divided into several groups: Showroom Stock, Improved Touring, Touring, Production, GT, Sports Racer and Formula.

Cars from the Showroom Stock classes could be—and often are—driven on the street. Except for safety upgrades, few changes are permitted, which doesn't mean the racers don't attempt to push the boundaries. Improved Touring, a regional-only class, permits more modifications than Showroom Stock but, with numbers removed and mufflers installed, few IT cars would warrant a second glance from Johnny Law if driven on public roads.

Cars in the Touring and Production classes started life on an auto company's production line, but have been extensively modified since. Some Production class cars left the factory almost 50 years ago.

With few exceptions, GT cars began life as a pile of drawn-over mandrel steel tubes and fiberglass. Much like NASCAR stockers, there's little or nothing stock about these cars. Those in GT1 are often older Trans-Am Series cars.

Sports Racing classes are purpose-built racecars with full-fendered bodies. C and D Sports Racing classes are perhaps the last homes for build-it-yourself-from-scratch racecars, though racecar fabrication shops now produce many of these cars. On the opposite extreme is Spec Racer Ford, where no modifications are permitted: racers must buy their cars from SCCA and are prohibited from changing anything.

Formula classes are for single-seat, open-wheel pure racecars. Cars in Formula Atlantic and Continental have parallel professional series. Formula Ford, once SCCA's biggest class, remains a great training ground for those with big-time aspirations.

SCCA's many regions often create their own classes. These include classes that parallel national rules but restrict entry to older chassis: Club Formula Ford, Club Sports 2000 and Club Formula Continental. Most regions have catchall classes for hand-me-down professional racecars. Then there are regional anomalies such as "GT Pinto," "SRX-7" for pre-'85 Mazda RX-7s, "Pro Truck" for tubeframed compact pickup look-alikes and "Formula Junior" for motorcycle-engined single-seaters.

Annual Runoffs

One of the best spectacles in all of racing is SCCA's annual Runoffs, which determine the group's national champions. Often called the Olympics of road racing, the 42nd Runoffs will be held Sept 23-25, 2005 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Some 700 drivers will compete for nothing more than gold-plated medals and bragging rights; yet, the competition will be at least as fierce as if millions of dollars were on the line.