By Dick Jordan
USAC’s newest Mopar .25 Midget club debuts next May in Michigan as the Little Kalamazoo Speedway Quarter Midget Club begins operation at a track located on the grounds of Kalamazoo Speedway.
Long a hotbed of open-wheel racing, the Kalamazoo area has hosted several USAC races through the years and this latest venture will form a foundation for future USAC racers from a state already known for producing two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Gordon Johncock (Hastings) plus USAC Champions Brian Tyler (Parma), Doug Kalitta (Ann Arbor) and Sam Sessions (Nashville).
Little Kalamazoo Speedway will join the growing list of USAC Mopar .25 Midget facilities and is expected to generate challengers for USAC’s 2011 “Generation Next Tour” championships.
“We have long recognized USAC’s position in the motorsports industry and look forward to our new partnership,” says LKSQMC head and track owner Scott Hocevar, headquartered in Portage, Mich. “We are very excited about the 2011 season and are anxious to get started.”
The new track is concrete, banked 13 degrees in the turns and seven degrees on the straightaways and will be located just outside turn three of the existing Speedway. It’s goal is to become the biggest and fastest track in the country and a total of 18 race meets are planned in 2011.
USAC participants will remember the 2009 USAC National Sprint race at Kalamazoo won by Bobby Santos III, who became the 100th different race winner in USAC National races in the state of Michigan.