TOPEKA, Kan. — The Sports Car Club of America’s Board of Directors has voted to move its annual National Championship season-ending Runoffs from Topeka’s Heartland Park to Road America in 2009.
In an unusual twist, the decision was made before any agreement with the Elkhart Lake, Wis., track has been negotiated. In years past, such changes were announced only after an agreement was in place. In commenting on the move, SCCA President & CEO Jim Julow said, “Given the history that the track, the town of Elkhart Lake and the SCCA enjoy, it only seems natural for the most prestigious club-racing event in the world to be hosted by Road America.”
Julow indicated that the SCCA’s Board had a number of options. However, what prompted the decision to make the move remains unclear, other than the vague statement from the SCCA that it “represents a change philosophy.”
When the Runoffs were moved from Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course two years ago, one of the rationales given was that Topeka represented a           centralized location that would encourage more participation from all parts of the country, eliminating complaints from some of the more distant SCCA Regions, particularly those on the West Coast, that Mid-Ohio was too long a distance to travel.
Indeed, from its inception in 1964 through 1969, the Runoffs alternated between Riverside in the Southern California desert and Daytona Int’l Speedway. After that it moved to Road Atlanta when the North Georgia facility opened in 1970, staying there for nearly a decade and a half before heading to Mid-Ohio, and then to Topeka in 2006.
Some insiders have suggested that move to Road America involves a degree of unhappiness by the participants with the somewhat-featureless Heartland course itself. Although there has been no real public outcry on the matter. Even so, given the fact that the non-full-time professional road-racing scene is much different from what it has been in the past, with many more venues and championships open to potential entrants, addressing such concerns has become ever more important.