Ray Irwin, half owner of Blackhawk Farms Raceway has bought Heartland Park Raceway in Topeka.
I've known about it since the end of Dec. but was asked to hold off telling anyone until he went public with the news.
So, with that bit of news. Will CCS be going back to Heartland? Maybe the Great Plains region could become a tighter region with another facility to race at in the area. ;D
Great news, I'd love to see Heartland built back up to what it once was. I remember going to some AMA races there in the late 80's-early 90's.
Heartland is near the top as far as most fun tracks, now if it could just be repaved.
Whoo Hooo! A track within an hour of my house! ;D ;D
Where is this track located at? : ???
Topeka, Kansas?
Wow!
Was a great track. But it has severely deteriorated. I used to use that as my roost a while back...when I lived in Omaha.
The drag racing there has been very good. Big money maker. Indy car teams used to do a lot of testing there, but with the deterioration... it was bad.
Nothing like it used to be.
I have competed in every event there except for the couple of CMRA events that were held there in like 1998...
That would be so great! I did STAR school there last summer and loved the layout but the pavement....well, sucked. It would be nice to have another track within 3 hours of me!!! 8)
Since Ray is a GT-1 SCCA car owner and driver you can probably bet something will be done about the surface at Heartland.
I was on the Heartland Park website. Pretty interesting. The local racers are going nuts wondering what is happening as far as the new owner, drag racer? roadracer? dirt tracker? ????
Yeah. But I hate to see someone I know have to drop so much cash... Ouch! I'm happy to see it, but you gotta sell lots of dates to pay for it! I hope it works out well!
Yeah, it may take awhile to get it done. Hopefully he has a good plan for this year to make some cash for
'04.
I understand Mid-Ohio's contract for the SCCA Valvoline Run-Offs is up soon and SCCA recently moved their headquarters to Topeka. I'm quite sure Ray will be pushing hard to get that event at Heartland. A new surface may be the ticket to ride.
How nice would it be for SCCA to have their big gig right in their back yard?
Seems like they had the run offs there in like 1997 or so. I remember it was kind of odd. And I though that they would continue running it in different places...but that never really happened.
We'll pray for Ray...
I too have raced at Heartland Park several times and agree that it is a fun track, with the exception of all that crack sealer they use! Hit that stuff, especially when it's hot outside, and it's like riding on Jello. I was glad when they fixed the dip in the middle of turn 1, and wished that they would have just paved the whole track over.
Someone told me that this track was built on a landfill and someone else told me that it was built on the extra dirt that was left over when they built the airport a long time ago. They both said that this is the reason that the track cracks so badly, because the ground is still settling. Does anyone know for sure the correct reason for the excessive cracking at Heartland Park?