Not since 1968 at the now-gone Riverside International Raceway has the Sports Car Club of America National Championship event been held west of the Rocky Mountains. In 2014 that changes as Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca hosts the Runoffs in California 50 years after the 1964 inaugural event at Riverside.
“Club Racing is the heart and soul of Mazda Motorsports,” says Mazda Motorsports Director John Doonan. “We are proud to help bring the biggest club racing event in the country to our home track for 2014. We’re thrilled that the SCCA will begin its second 50 years of Runoffs history at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.”
The 50th Runoffs happens at Road America, where the event was held for six years. Other tracks that have hosted the Runoffs are Road Atlanta, Heartland Park Topeka, Daytona International Speedway and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. Following the 2014 event at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, the Runoffs will return to the latter two courses, in 2015 and ’16, respectively, marking a return to the rotation between tracks that occurred in the first six years.
“Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Daytona and Mid-Ohio are three of the premier racetracks in the country, if not the world,” says SCCA President and CEO Jeff Dahnert. “Each is a true test of our racers and all have unique qualities to help us crown our National Champions.
“The future of the Runoffs has been a topic of discussion amongst the SCCA Board of Directors and the national staff for well over a year. We had two goals for the event moving forward – to move the event around the country geographically and to continue to visit the country’s top tracks. We’ve accomplished both,” Dahnert continues.
When the Runoffs come to the track next year, on Oct. 6-12, it will be Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca’s first time hosting the event, and make it only the seventh circuit in the country to do so.
“The SCCA Runoffs embodies the true essence of sports car racing,” says Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca CEO and General Manager Gill Campbell. “This is a great platform for amateur road racers and we are proud to be a part of the crowning of a National Champion.”
The historic track near Monterey, Calif., regularly hosts numerous SCCA Club Racing events each year, including both Regional and National events put on by the San Francisco Region of SCCA. In addition, the circuit also features the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix for the MotoGP World Championship, the SBK-Eni FIM Superbike World Championship and the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. In 2013 it also hosted both the American Le Mans Series and the Continental Tire Sports Car Festival powered by MAZDA for the Rolex Grand-American Sports Car Series. Those two sports car series come together as United SportsCar Championship in 2014; the full schedule for that series has not been announced.