Some days you’re the windshield, some days you’re the bug.

Last year I had a fantastic season, five FTDs in 10 local events, regional driver of the year, yada yada       doo-dah doo-dah. This year? I can’t seem to get out of my own way.

But y’know what? That’s racin’.

I bought my ’64 Spitfire as a street car in 1966 when I was still in college at KU. It was great fun but developed a bad habit of breaking down every October, which was usually just about the time of the MiDiv Solo Championships. MiDiv was the first SCCA Division even to have a divisional solo championship and of course I had to be there.

After the third such breakdown, I limped the car back to Lawrence where my brother Buck had a repair shop, and also was into road racing with his MGA. That MGA, by the way, was the first car I ever drove in anger, back in ’65 when Buck lived in New York and was autocrossing every weekend somewhere in the NY metro area. I came home, bought the Spitfire, and the rest is 44 years of history.

Anyway, I told Buck to turn the Spitfire into a race car (and I bought a Pinto — my first-ever new car) and to go race it for a couple of years, then I’d take it back. Actually he raced it three years, took it to the Runoffs twice, then I got it back for $1500 — which was $200 more than I’d paid for it in the first place but still a bargain. Now I had a Real Race Car to take autocrossing.

By then I’d been autocrossing the Pinto, even took it to the first Solo Nationals and did a season of Showroom Stock road racing with it. Ex-wife got it in the divorce — I had to choose between two cars and I chose the Spitfire’s tow car.

But when I got the Li’l Blue back I also developed a basic philosophy for running a race car. It’s not a question of IF it will break down, but WHEN. Thing is, when you make these cars stronger, faster, meaner, you also make them more fragile. Things are taken out to the limit of their capability and it’s not that far from better to broken. You just hope the breakdown is not at one of the more inconvenient times — like in the middle of a 100 mph corner. Yeah, I’ve done that too, on the 4th gear Carousel turn at Memphis when the left-front suspension decided it didn’t want to suspend the car any more. Tow 11 hours to Memphis and then gotta figure out how to put the car on the trailer for the long tow home (ended up using someone’s used-up throwaway slick tire under the car in place of the suspension spring). Or like at the National Solo Championships.

This year [sigh] nothing but trouble from the get-go. First couple of local events it was niggling engine things. Chasing after it I found probably six or eight little — I mean, little — issues, any one of which would hardly slow me down but taken all together meant a car that just would not run right. That was the April and May events (since March got snowed out), and by June it was up to our Divisional already.

Okay it was finally running right and then POW! Blew the differential out at the Divisional. I mean, really blew it out. Ring gear had maybe four teeth left. Fortunately I had spares, which in this case meant the separate pieces to build a new one. Just happened to have a carrier the right size (takes the big axles). Just happened to have a couple of spare 4:55 gearsets I bought from Canley Classics in England when people on this side of the pond were saying they were flat unavailable.

Put a new rear end together and took the car to the Divisional in Neosho, Mo. — my longest tow of the season and oboy, I get to use a Divisional as a test session again.

Neosho turned out to be the high point of the year. Car ran great, I won the class and the points there meant I only really needed to start the Divisional finale in Lincoln, Neb., to win the MiDiv GP Championship.

So we tow up to Lincoln, but it’s still not running right. We re-set the valves (and I burn myself on a hot rocker arm). Second day the car seems to be running better until, just coming around the final turn on the second run, the engine goes blaaaaah. Passed on my final run and put it on the trailer. Still not sure what it was, but at that point I called my engine guy up in Michigan. He already had my other engine for a rebuild and told me earlier it was basically ready to go. Crate that sucker up! With two weeks between the Divisional and Nationals I got the new engine back and stuffed into the car. It’s supposed to be a little stronger too.

Back in Lincoln for Nationals, in the paddock I start it up, sounds good and strong. Go out for my first run on the first day, and I’m just going through the opening offsets and the engine’s roaring until … sudden silence. I’ve heard that sound (or lack thereof) before when I blew one up, but this time it was a simple fix. The rotor inside the distributor — the little springy thingy that spins around taking the spark from the coil wire and distributes it to the four sparkplug wires, had broken into four pieces.

Yes, again, I had a spare. Also replaced the distributor cap just to be sure, and went and did my last two runs (but apparently distracted enough by all the chasing back and forth between grid and paddock — glad I rented that golf cart! — I drove like a doofus and ended up next-to-last for the day. Yuck!

Okay, let’s do better on the second day. Lined up on the East Course, fired out and again the opening sequence was a series of offsets, then around a big 180 curve when blaaahhhhhh from the engine again. Not so easily diagnosed this time. I drove Bill Cutrer’s Fiat X1/9 on my last two runs. Always wanted to try Bill’s car. Very responsive. That was fun, the high point of the Nationals week, and managed to pull up three positions from the first day.

Back home I’m just too busy with post-Nationals work for SportsCar Magazine for two weeks to go look at the Spitfire. Thank you Bill Dayton for letting me drive your Cobalt, and thank you Dr. Swenson for letting me have a turn in your Miata.

Finally last weekend I have time to look under the hood. Called my engine guy a couple of times. Ran a compression check. Tried starting it with no luck. Then for some reason I touched the little “chopper” inside the distributor that interrupts the light beam that fires my electronic ignition. It was loose! Probably got knocked askew when my distributor rotor blew up.

Put it back on the distributor shaft tight, where it should be, rough timed the engine and hit the key. Varoooom!
(Sigh).

But that’s racin’. And worth it because when the Spitfire is running right, it’s a LOT more fun.

We celebrate multiple national solo champions, and right now John Thomas with his 15 titles sits as the Zeus among solo gods. We haven’t heard from E. Paul Dickinson for a quarter-century now, but he was the first to do it more than once.

In fact, he was the first to do it as many as four times, winning A Stock (that was the top stock class then, children), the first four years of the solo Nationals. Yes, that means of all the 15 champions who won at the first Nationals in 1973, E. Paul was the only one to repeat the feat in 1974.

Dickinson drove a Porsche 911T, which he was proud to point out was underpowered compared to the S and E models of the same car, not to mention the Lotus Elans which also helped populate the class. But he studied what made a car fast, or more to the point, what made a driver fast in any car.

Dickinson’s parents were dancing instructors, and E. Paul spent his time on the studio floor helping teach the fumble-footed. He brought many of those teaching techniques with him when he opened a driving school in West Virginia. I went out to do his school in 1976, and wrote a story about it for SportsCar Magazine. Although I’d been autocrossing more than 10 years then, it was really the first time I’d been formally introduced to such concepts as late apexes and looking ahead, taught that these were speed secrets superior to cubic dollars thrown at the car.

Dickinson, a member of the Ohio Valley Region, ran and won those first four Nationals and then laid off for a while. He returned in 1980, now in a race-prepped Lotus 7 Series IV in A Prepared, to win a fifth title.

Gene Hanchett of San Francisco Region didn’t go to the first Nationals in Wentzville, Mo., but made the second one in Lake Geneva, WI. He won C Prepared in a Camaro Z28 beginning a six-year streak becoming the first to win five (also the first to do five in a row) in 1978. He also won in 1979, got podium finishes the next two years, and took his seventh victory in1982 at the 10th anniversary Nationals in Chicago. That was Hanchett’s last appearance, but his record would stand until 1990.

Over on the distaff side, the ladies lagged behind until Charlotte King came on the scene. But first there was Saundra Lee Kline, the only driver to win in all three versions of the Ladies classes. Driving a Porsche 914-6 set up for A Prepared, out of Washington DC Region, Kline won the 1974 Ladies Class when all 19 female competitors were grouped into one class with their times based on an index calculated against the men’s times. Yeah, we didn’t call it open then as the idea of the gals running heads-up against the guys was still a little radical then.

But after just two years it had become apparent that the index was a poor way to determine a National Champion, and so instead four Ladies classes were created — essentially top and bottom Stock, and top and bottom Prepared. Street Prepared didn’t exist then, and the powers that be really didn’t think the delicate little ladies would be showing up in Modified. Ho ho, wrong-O!

Four Mod gals came to the 1975 Nationals, Fran Sinclair won an unofficial Ladies Modified (officially they ran in the open class), and the next year there were five ladies classes.

Meanwhile Sam Kline won B Ladies (top Prepared) in 1976, 1977 and 1978 and by then it was finally determined that even the top/bottom concept really didn’t work. If we will have Ladies classes, there must be parallel classes, and in 1979 Kline won her fifth championship, now properly in A Prepared Ladies.

That was the same year Hanchett won his sixth. He would stop at seven, where the men’s record would stay for the next eight years. But the women’s didn’t.

Charlotte King of San Francisco Region made her first appearance in 1978 winning A Ladies in a Tui Super Vee prepped by her husband Bob. That began an 11-year streak for Charlotte (Bob would win four), driving the Tui for three years and then the Sprite RX-Z a Sprite body on a Datsun suspension with a Mazda rotary motor in E Mod. That car was a zinger that later would also win championships for Bryan and Jean Kinser.

Charlotte passed Gene Hanchett in 1985 and her 11 in a row still stands as the second-longest winning streak.

On the men’s side, Hanchett’s mark was finally eclipsed by Ron Flier of St. Louis Region, who got his eighth in 1990 in a B Mod Lola. Flier’s earlier seven had all been in Lotus door slammers.

Chris O’Donnell of Cal Club ran off a series of D Mod wins in a pristine Lotus Elan and became the first at nine, 10 and 11 championships, his last coming 10 years ago.

Meanwhile, Joyce Looman of South Bend Region had run off 10 championships in a Solo Vee before changing to a Dulon Formula Ford for four more. She got her 15th in a Royale in 1995.

Karen Babb of Northwest Region is the current top mark in the Ladies classes, with a total of 20 championships; eight in ASPL, five in APL and seven in DML, all with a Lotus Elan and the last coming in 2005. For the past three years she’s taken on the open DM class.

John Thomas of Mississippi Region tied Looman’s 15 just last year. He was the first to reach 12, in 2003 when he won the last of an 11-year win streak in E Prepared aboard Tom Lombardo’s Honda Civic wagon. Going back to his FP Datsun 240Z, Thomas needed a couple of years to get it back in shape before beginning a new winning streak in 2006. His closest challengers are John Ames, who hasn’t been seen at Nationals since 2006, and Tommy Saunders, who won BM last year, both at 12 wins.

No active female is within seven wins of Babb’s tally.

Moving along on our series on Solo stats we now come to the most championships won by SCCA Division. It is clear that two Divisions have yeilded the most Championships: Northern Pacific and Central. The Central Division comes out on top in this match up with 169 Championships won to Northern Pacific Division’s 150. The balance are spread among just three Divisions: Southern Pacific, Midwest and Southwest Divisions. These statistics courtesy of Rocky Entriken.

Salina was about to lose its record as the Host with the Most“ the most times as the locale for the SCCA Solo Nationals. But last year the club decided to move the event from Topeka to Lincoln, Neb., so barring a return to Topeka, which seems unlikely Salina’s record is safe until at least 2025.

Wonder if I can hold out and still be a 100 Percenter by then? I’ll only be 84 years old. And my Spitfire will only be 61!

I’ll take credit for bringing the Nationals to Kansas, and to Salina, in 1975. I was chair of that third running as, then, a member of Kansas Region. That means that although the Nationals were in Salina 15 times and in Topeka 14 times, Kansas Region was host 15 times and thus holds that record — also safe until at least 2025.

In fact, no other region is even close. Salina Region and Wichita Region each were host five times, Kansas City four times, Texas and Chicago Regions twice each, and five other regions (St. Louis, Ohio Valley, Houston, San Francisco and Saginaw Valley) once each.

No, the Nationals were never held in California or Michigan. San Francisco co-hosted with Kansas City in 1983 while Saginaw Valley was only a nominal host as a device to permit a 1985 experiment in drawing specialty chiefs from all over the nation. It worked.

Previously the host region was in charge of the event, including providing event workers. Part of the 1985 experiment included using all competitors as event workers, which today is SOP wherever you go. Since 1986 the host region has been truly a host and no longer the organizer.

Salina Region was not chartered until 1990, so although the 1988 and 1989 events mostly fell to the then-Salina Chapter of Wichita Region, from 1986 to 1989 the official region host was Wichita — that’s how they are credited with five events although the only one Wichita truly was responsible for was the 1978 Nationals at Sunflower Aerodrome south of Hutchinson.

Six Nationals were held at the East Crawford Recreation Area, then called Airport Park; today the site of local Salina Region events. When the organizational concept formally changed in 1986 that was also the year the Nationals moved across town to what today is the Salina Municipal Airport it was Schilling AFB, a Strategic Air Command bomber base until the Air Force closed it in 1964. Nine Nationals were run there until we outgrew it and moved to Forbes Field in Topeka.

Forbes held 11 Nationals, the record for a specific venue until at least 2020 if we stay in Lincoln. Salina Municipal Airport stands second at nine, then Salina ECRA at six, Heartland Park Topeka had three, Greater Southwest in Fort Worth did two, then five other sites were visited one time each.

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.

Continuing on with our series on Solo Stats our next installment covers the Most Championships by Region. We want to thank Rocky Entriken for making it possible for us to publish these.

Championships Won in One Year

This material is copyrighted by Rocky Entiken and may not be reproduced without express written permission.

In the latter years of the 1970s, the Solo Nationals continued to wander like the Lost Tribes through the desert, with not even a Moses to lead them to the Promised Land. And yet more and more of the faithful continued to join the pilgrimage each year.

It was not much of a surprise when a record 376 drivers entered the 1976 Nationals at the Ohio State Fairgrounds in Columbus, handy to the heavily-populated Central and Northeast Divisions. That was 67 more than had gone to Salina the year before. The course – just one again – was set up on the fairgrounds’ access roads, as was the paddock. No not gravel, but not pavement either. We parked on grass.

Ohio Valley Region was the host and in those years Ohio Valley was the King of solo. Its drivers had won 11 trophies at the first Nationals, most of any Region, and member E. Paul Dickinson had become the first three-time (about to be four) National Champion.

Set up on roadways, the course was mostly a slalom exercise. Think of a square-topped letter A — we went up the right leg, across the crossbar, up the left side, back across the top and past what was warned as the “car-eating fenceâ€? (although personally I’m not sure it lunched on a single car during that Nationals; I think that was a reputation from earlier events), down the right side of the A, across the crossbar again and finish on the left leg.

There was a massive tree in the infield of the course and John Kelly shot a wonderfully picturesque photo of me going past and dwarfed by that tree, which he caught in all its glory.

I especially recall Charlie Clark, his big green Corvair classed then in D Prepared amongst all the LBCs – his competition primarily 1275 Spridgets and their ilk, and somehow getting that big hunk of Detroit iron through the slaloms to his first national championship. He’d catch three more, but those came 10 years later when his car had been reclassed with the ponycars in CP.

We were up to 20 classes by then with two Modified classes joining the list — C Mod for the bottom-end formula cars and sports-racers and A Ladies for the distaff drivers in Modified machinery. Kim Baker of New England Region won AM and FTD in an unnamed Super Vee, but he was only 3/4 of a second quicker than Ohio Valley’s Dick Reese in the CM winner, a Knievel Mini-Indy — basically an amusement park car predating Malibu Grand Prix.

This was the second and last time a Nationals would be purposely contested on only a single course. It’s only happened one time since, in 2001 when the 9/11 attacks pushed us off Forbes Field for a day and a half.

A year later found the nomads in Texas, at Greater Southwest Raceway in Fort Worth. GSR was actually an abandoned airfield on the way to becoming an industrial park and Texas Region had been using the wide runways as a race track.

For the first time the entry actually went down, to 352 drivers, not that surprising really since Dallas was much less an SCCA population center than Ohio but it would become the only time a 5-year milestone has not resulted in a new entry record.

The three-sided former airport terminal embraced an apron that, that year, became the paddock. The courses went out for a fast rip on the runways. My memories of that particular event remain somewhat murky as I encountered a slipping clutch that pretty well took care of the weekend.

Actually I did it to myself. There was a long expanse of open concrete from paddock to startline and a lot of drivers used it to do a dragstrip-style burnout (no one really fussed about it either). So I thought I’d give it a try and when it came my turn I ran up the revs and let ’er rip. In my little Spitfire, then an E Prepared car.

Starter asks, “What were you doing?�

Myself replies, “Just a quick burnout.�

Starter says, “Tires weren’t turning.�

Did the burnout on my clutch! Which continued to slip through the entire run. Didn’t even run the second day. Only reason I wasn’t DFL was two drivers in EP got DQ’d and somehow I was still quicker on Saturday than three other guys who were DNS on Sunday.

Whether we realized it or not then, we had by now established airports as the primo venue for a Solo Nationals. The next year, 1978, saw the event at the former Hutchinson Naval Air Station – back in Kansas again – now known as Sunflower Aerodrome and site of road races done by Nationals host Wichita Region.

The big course/small course concept was taken to extreme at Hutch. The long course was a minute and a half for A Mod winner Larry Gagnon from New England in his Braham, a full two minutes for HS champion Paul Bess from Western Ohio in his Fiat 850. The short course was 36 seconds for Gagnon, not quite 44 for Bess.

Mostly we remember Hutch for the 5-gate “Polish Slalom� – you could go through any gate any which way you wanted, off-course was not possible as long as you went between the cones somehow, but no matter how you did it you were never on a really good line for the next one.

In 1979 we returned to GSR, the first time a site had been revisited, except this time we paddocked out on the apron and ran the courses between the arms of the terminal building. It was great for spectators who could get into the building and watch from the second-floor concourses.

Classes jumped to 34 as parallel ladies classes made their first appearance, and the entry was more than a hundred cars better than had come to Texas two years earlier. Events were running more smoothly as experienced people were now in charge. We’re finally beginning to figure out how to do this!

Copyright Rocky Entriken 2009

PRESS RELEASE: The long awaited announcement of a Grandchild coming has prompted CEO, Jack Burns, and the cutting edge design team at Jack Burns Race Wheels, to debut the first in a series of new extreme strollers. Thirteen colors, and wheel styles, will be made available along with optional Navigation and WiFi. The new extreme stroller is the first product released by the newly formed Jack Burns Global Enterprises company: Jack Burns Tuner Tots.

The information in this press release is considered proprietary and may not be reproduced or copied without express written permission. Look for addtional information coming soon on the new Jack Burns Race Wheels home on the web www.jbrw.info

For many years Rocky Entriken has been compiling statistics on Solo. Rocky has generously agreed permit rogues-racing.com to share them with you.  To kick off the series we will be starting with the Top Tens: Most Championships by Individual.

Women
Name                                                     Region                           Championships
1.    Karen Babb                                                    Northwest                                       20
2.    Joyce Looman                                              South Bend                                     15
3.    Kierstn Schamberg Koch                         Kansas City                                     13
4.    Patty Tunnell                                                Colorado                                         12
5.    Kim Bolinger                                                 South Bend                                     11
5.    Katie Elder *                                                  San Francisco                                11
5.    Vicki Flier                                                      St. Louis                                           11
5.   Charlotte King                                              San Francisco                                 11
5.   Mary Pozzi (nee Rice) *                            San Francisco                                 11
5.  Mary Wentzel                                                Detroit                                               11

Men

Name                                                    Region                             Championships
1.    John Thomas *                                             Mississippi                                      15
2.    John Ames                                                    Continental Divide                       12
2.   Tommy Saunders *                                    Texas                                                 12
4.    Chris O’Donnell                                           CSCC                                                   11
5.    Tom Bootz                                                    Southern Indiana                          10
6.    Mark Daddio                                                New England                                     9
6.    Gary Thomason *                                      San Diego                                            9
8.    Ron Flier                                                       St. Louis                                              8
8.    Randy Herrick*                                          Kansas                                                 8
8.    Paul Kozlak                                                  New England                                     8
8.    Gary Milligan                                              Northwest                                          8
8.    Jeff Reitmeir                                               San Francisco                                   8

* New records

This material is copyrighted by Rock Entriken and may not be reproduced without express written permission.

NEBRASKA! For a guy from Kansas, a loyal KU Jayhawk (and perhaps also for a few Wildcats from K-State), Nebraska is enemy territory. The hated red horde north of the border, Cornhuskers fer gawd’s sake with a dumb-looking hayseed for a mascot! The fact that over the years they whipped up on us in football like we were the red-headed stepchild having nothing to do with that at all. And conveniently ignored is that my Jayhawks usually returned the favor when it came to basketball season.

But when it comes to playing cars, SCCA-style, you won’t meet a nicer bunch of people than Nebraska Region. So now, after 26 straight years in Kansas, the SCCA Tire Rack Solo Nationals move to Nebraska, to the Lincoln Airpark. With the members of Nebraska Region as your new hosts the event will be in great hands. As far as this Kansan is concerned, the Nationals can stay in Lincoln for the next quarter-century and that’ll be a good deal for us all.

Except for a one-year detour to Chicago in 1982, the Solo Nationals’ home has been Kansas since 1980. but in the early years, the 1970s, the event led a truly nomadic existence. Only one site from 1973 to 1979 enjoyed the autocrossers’ presence more than once and that one not even consecutive years.

And me, I’m a 100 Percenter so I was there for all of them. Lately the events seem to all run together. Maybe it’s the Oldtimer’s Disease getting to me, but I cannot distinguish in my memory the 1995 Nationals from the 1999 Nationals. However, the events of the ’70s still stand out.

The first Nationals in 1973 was at the now-defunct Mid-America Raceway in Wentzville, Mo., west of St. Louis. The St. Louis Region hoped maybe 150 drivers would show up and were thrilled when 224 drivers came to run in 15 classes — 7 Stock, 5 Prepared, 2 Modified and one Ladies class based on index.

The A Modified winner, Stan Cox from Central Carolinas Region, drove a Beech Formula Vee on fat tires. Today it’d be an F Mod Solo Vee. That 18-car A Mod class had dune buggies, Formula Fords, a 5-liter Formula A car (finished mid-pack) and a couple of doorslammers. But A Mod wasn’t FTD — that honor went to AP winner Harry Gompf from Cincinnati Region in a Porsche 914-6.

Can you imagine today’s autocrossers, seen feverishly scraping stones and dust from their über-sticky Kumhos and Hoosiers putting up with a gravel paddock? Back then even the slicks didn’t pick up the stones that much so no one said anything about the unpaved rock-strewn infield.

The event was kind of a mess, partly the Solo Board’s doing. They decided they didn’t like St. Louis Region’s course concept which put pylons on the straights and left the corners open, and so spent Saturday morning re-inventing the course so the straights were open and the turns pyloned. Basically it was a series of chicanes stretching reverse-direction from Turn 7 to the uphill finish at Turn 1 — a 2-minute run in my G Stock Pinto. Then they added a 35-second afterthought on the frontstraight/dragstrip to create a second course.

Chicago Region won the bid to for the second Solo Nationals and put the event down at Lake Geneva Raceway on the southern edge of Wisconsin. That track, a short asphalt oval bisected by a dragstrip, had room for just the one course which started up the dragstrip, veered onto the nearside of the oval, back down the dragstrip the other way, over onto the farside of the oval, then up the end of the dragstrip to the flying finish. Again, the paddock was gravel.

That event attracted 272 drivers in the same 15 classes. Even then the Solo Board had to fiddle with the course design delaying the start of the event, but despite the best intentions of the redesign, when it began raining Sunday afternoon a couple of cars still managed to crunch the high concrete wall alongside the early part of the course.

This time FTD went where it might be expected, to the A Mod winner, but AM in the ’70s is not the AM of today. That winner was a Lotus Elan S2 in the hands of Detroit Region’s Gary Lownsdale. A Ford GT40 (yes!) trophied  fourth in the class driven by Florida Region’s Harry Heinl.
The Nationals finally found its way to Kansas for the first time in 1975, Kansas Region the host at the Salina site then known as Airport Park (now the East Crawford Recreation Area). Not yet improved with all its ball fields, the site was a mile-long former airport runway 150 feet wide. The “long courseâ€? was set up at the south end and even ran out onto the parallel taxiway. The painfully tight short course was at the north end. The paddock — paved! — was between the two.

Also for the first time, the two layouts put down Friday evening were what everyone ran Saturday and Sunday. Because of the course-design issues at the first two events, Kansas Region insisted on having the courses designed and set up for a test run several months before with an official representative designated by the Solo Board to come inspect and approve them.

Each course ran about 90 seconds, intended as a longer championship-caliber test but ending up stretching the event to the extent that everyone only got two runs on the second course in order to get 309 drivers through in two days. Thus it was learned that a 60-second run was about ideal.

Now there were 18 classes, unofficially 19. The index system for Ladies was scrapped and instead the 35 female competitors were grouped into two Stock and two Prepared classes. The Solo Board hadn’t expected ladies in Modified but four showed up and ran with the men, Fran Sinclair in a Lotus 7 taking a special fastest lady award presented by her own San Francisco Region. Quick time overall fell to AM winner John MacDonald, of New England Region and the Otto Kros Racing Team, in a Brabham BT29 Formula B car.