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November / December 2016 20 By Bob Wayman KCRPCA Club Racing & DE EVENTS WILL BE BACK! RACING CHAIR Dear Track Rats: I am writing to update you on personally witnessed progress at Heartland Park. On Tuesday the KCRPCA Driving Committee Chairs (me and Dave Stadtmuel- ler) spent several hours at the track with the new road course manager, Jeff Lacina. First, I am very pleased to tell you that for the first time in my experience we have a real road racing Track Rat as part of the management team at HPT. Jeff has LOTS of experience on road cours - es and even operates his own track instruction pro- gram all over the country. He has driven and instructed on 80 (!) tracks across the country and has many many hours of track time at HPT. FINALLY!!! Second, and best of all, Jeff and the new ownership team have embarked on a full re- pave of the entire track, including all the configu- rations and the pit in road. The process in well under- way, we got a personal tour around the track from Jeff and saw all the work going on. We learned a lot about asphalt and what works and what doesn't. Basically the process involves removing 3" of the existing surface then repaving in two 1 1/5" lifts. The grinding process exposes the condition of the base and as you can imagine there were several places where the base was dete - riorated. The team there is repairing all of these areas before repaving over those areas begins. The asphalt being used for the repave is the same formula used when Kansas Speedway was re - paved and added the road course. The top layer will be 100% virgin asphalt (no recycle material) which pro- vides a much higher qual- ity and long lasting surface. Jeff is addressing a number of watershed issues in the surrounding topography that will prevent problems in the future. So folks, our local track is BACK. Jeff fully under- stands that he needs all of us to make it a success and I believe he and the new own- ership team are fully com- mitted to making a success of the operation. KCRPCA and KC BMW clubs are both working with Jeff and their national orga- nizations to make prelimi- nary plans for scheduling events at HPT in 2017. It will be a while before details are settled, but there will be events on a brand new sur- face in 2017 at Heartland Park Topeka. I will keep you posted. Bob