Midwest National Challenge
This year's event is tentatively set for July 18-19 in Grain Valley, MO, on the eastern edge of Kansas City. It's a dirt drags venue with a pretty smooth surface, and it's only 2.5 hours from the Springfield area. Do yourself a favor and get up to this site. It's a good one.
Photo by David Peterlin
RallyCross National Championships
The big event is in Indianola, Iowa, over the weekend of August 7-9, at a hot air balloon site just south of Des Moines. It's only about six hours away from our area, so it's no further than Lincoln was last year. After the cold, soggy 2014 Nationals last October, the post-event survey showed everyone wanted dry conditions and more warmth/daylight to compete and hang out. To avoid conflicting with Solo Nationals, the RXB found this date was available. OMRSCCA has collected a lot of trophies over the last few years, and hopefully stays in the business of doing well at upper-level events.
Aerial view of Indianola, IA
RallyCross is solid
OMRSCCA has been RallyCrossing continuously since 2010. Not only can you count on events in our area throughout the year, but our neighbors in Arkansas, Kansas City, and St. Louis Regions also have active RallyCross programs. NEOkla has a site very close to OMR and is looking to have an event this year, too. If Kansas Region gets into the game - we looked at a site near Topeka a few weeks ago - that would mark 100% of the regions bordering OMR as RallyCross regions. There are plenty of opportunities to compete near you.
Easy to compete
All you need is a stock-height street car. FWD is fast and RWD is fun, so it doesn't need to be a late-model Subaru, either. A solid runner like an old Corolla/Civic/etc. swapped to snow tires on the front wheels is a surprisingly cheap and entertaining RallyCross machine.
Get involved
Justin Andrews is now chairing our RallyCross program. If you have ideas or can lend a hand, let him know. He's discussing OMR RallyCross in 2015 right here:
http://www.omrscca.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1668
Look for more information in the coming weeks and months.