After the nomadic years of the 1970s, the SCCA Solo Nationals finally settled – for the most part – on a home in Kansas, where it would remain for 28 of the next 29 years.
Kansas City Region bid for the 1980 event and returned it to what then was known as Airport Park in Salina (now the East Crawford Recreation Area, which remains to this day the site for Salina Region solo events). That one went well enough KC Region did it again the following year – the first time either a region or a site had been the host for two consecutive years.
1982 would be the 10th anniversary and the event was given to Chicago Region once again (they had done the 1974
version at a race track in Wisconsin). We would celebrate the milestone with a visit to the Big City, running on the parking lots of the Marriott Great America Amusement Park. We would be a prime attraction at a site visited by thousands annually.
Well, it turned out we mostly got lost in traffic. The event itself was fine – and notable for the introduction of the “Chicago Box� to the solo lexicon – but once they drove out the amusement park’s gates the autocrossers realized the city hardly noticed they were there.
It would be the last time for 24 years that the Solo Nationals ran on asphalt, and the only time in the event’s history that this “parking lot sport� ever used an actual parking lot for its venue.
Back in Salina the autocrossers had been a big fish in a small pond, warmly welcomed by the local citizenry happy to have them back for the next 12 years.
With 1983’s event came the first step to take the event organization to a national scale. While Kansas City was again the host, this time it was co-host with San Francisco Region. From half a continent away, several members of the co-host region would take on important organizational positions.
The rest of the solo community had been hearing for several years how San Francisco did things. There was even a rebuttal bumper sticker; “Frankly we don’t care how you do it in San Francisco.� But the fact remained that through the first 10 years of the Solo Nationals the northern California group had collected a record 58 championships and 147 trophy finishes. Clearly, they were doing something right!
Two years later the host was tiny Saginaw Valley Region located in middle Michigan, but the site was still Salina’s Airport Park. Actually it was Dave and Joyce Looman and Chuck Sample proving their vision that the event did not need a host region to organize it. As event chairs they recruited specialty chiefs from across the nation to run the event.
From that day forward the SCCA Solo Nationals have utilized the talents of members nationwide, no longer laying the responsibility on the shoulders of a single host region.
You must log in to post a comment.