Der Sportwagen

July / August 2014 43 Club Race Co-Chairmen Update By Bob Wayman & David Stadmueller KCRPCA Club Race Update HEARTLAND PARK Dear KCRPCA Club Members, We are writing to the membership to inform you that the board has ap- proved the recommendation of the Club Race co-chairmen to cancel our planned "Porsches in the Heartland Club Race and DE" at Heartland Park Topeka June 27-29, 2014. With three weeks left for registration, there were only 28 club racers (13 paid) and 10 (7 paid) DE participants registered for the event. This level of participation would result in a significant loss to the club should the event go forward, something that neither the Club Race co-chairs nor the board felt would be in the best interest of our membership. We had high hopes that the work done by the Heartland Park team over the off season would help to mitigate the widely held (in the track commu- nity) opinion that the condition of the track has deteriorated significantly over the past few years resulting in an unac- ceptable amount of car and windshield damage compared to other Midwest tracks. Clearly, from the disappointing number of registrants for our event, this opinion remains in the mind of many Midwest racers and track aficionados. A number of KCRPCA track folks participated in a NASA track event last weekend at Heartland Park. We had hoped to be able to report that the track conditions had improved to the point of bringing the track back to acceptable condition. Unfortunately, that was not the case as the majority of our partici- pants in this event suffered an inordi- nate amount of damage to their paint and windshields. A certain amount of wear and tear is expected when tracking your vehicle, the damage experienced by our group greatly exceeded what would be considered normal or accept- able. The Heartland Park venue has been a great facility for KCRPCA; we have had many successful events there over the years. It is truly unfortunate that the track surface has reached the point that major repairs are required to bring it back into an acceptable condition. Cur- rently it is not clear if or when the man- agement team there can put the neces- sary improvements in place. Until such time that effective repairs are made, we cannot in good faith ask our members to expose their cars to the condition of the track at a KCRPCA sponsored event. KCRPCA intends to perpetuate its high performance driving event activi- ties. In an effort to do so, we will fully explore alternative venues to provide the opportunity for our members to ex- perience their Porsches on a race track. Bob Wayman Dave Stadtmueller 2014 Club Race Co-Chairmen.

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