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The Valvoline Runoffs
Since 1966, the National Championship event has been a "winner-take-all",
week-long affair. From '66-'69 it rotated between Daytona and Riverside and was
held the week of Thanksgiving. It moved to Road Atlanta in 1970 and was still in
November thru 1973 or so, then it was the last week in October for many years
(our kids used to go trick-or-treating among the tents in the infield), then
they moved to the third week in October until this year. Mid-Ohio first hosted
them in '94 and is in the middle of it's third three-year contract.
With few exceptions since 1972, each class has had it's own "feature" race. With
24 classes, that takes three days to run. I know that the June Sprints runs as
many (or more) cars in a total of three days, but then Road America is almost
twice as long (and can have more cars per race) than Mid-Ohio (100 vs. 58). And
combining classes dilutes the prestige of winning a "slower" class (besides
potentially affecting the outcome with a full-course yellow if the overall
leader splits two class contenders).
Just because there is practice on Monday and three qualifying sessions on
Tue-Thu doesn't mean you have to run all of them. We gave semi-serious thought
to saving expenses by showing up on Wednesday, but you're at the mercy of the
unpredicatable fall weather in central Ohio. I suppose you could also just show
up on Sunday and start at the back if you were only there for the "experience of
it all", but it'd be tough to win that way.
Some folks are going for the win while others are there for the fun of it. It's
also become a season-ending rallying point for multitudes of racers, officials
and fans that don't see each other any other time during the year. Regardless of
why you're there, it's seldom an afterthought - "wow, we're qualified for the
Runoffs, maybe we oughta go!". Most racers budget for the Runoffs both
financially and chronologically and know what it takes to compete there.
In my personal case, we ran pretty well at the August Nationals, but it was
apparent we had nothing for the resident Hot Shoes. Since I'm there to compete
for the win, I decided to use money budgeted for the '01 Runoffs toward getting
better for the '02 season.
I don't see the Runoffs ever changing from the week-long format, but everyone
knows what it takes to be National Champion going in. I know that VIR is
preparing a bid for 2003, I assume Mid-Ohio wants to keep them, Road Atlanta is
talking about a bid and I've heard that Thunderhill is interested. Given the HQ
move to Topeka, I wouldn't be surprised to see a bid from Heartland Park
sometime in the future. Obviously there a limited number of tracks that could
handle 600 cars, but now that the event has moved to September it'd be
interesting to see if Road America wants the Runoffs. No telling who else may be
contemplating bids even as I write.
All of the mentioned tracks have plusses and minuses going for them. Personally
I'd like to see a return to Road Atlanta or move them to VIR, but I can
certainly see the "Left Coast" argument that they need a local chance after
towing across the country for 30 years. Mid-Ohio is a superb spectator track but
sucks as a racetrack for GT-1 cars. Road America (if they're interested) can
certainly handle the event, but they've already got the Sprints each year and
"Denver/Topeka" (which is us, by the way) probably would want to spread the
wealth.
It'll be interesting...
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