Not long ago the track announced that it was going to build a road course, which drew cheers not only from sports car racers but also from old-timers who remembered the years when there was a road course at Thompson. That original road course at Thompson was the first purpose-built road course in the United States – prior to that time road races were conducted on, well, roads.
Although the oval has remained in regular use, it has been decades since the Thompson road course was used, and it fell first into disrepair, then into near-oblivion. When we were last at Thompson in 2011, there were scant traces of the road course to be found.
On April 6 Thompson conducted the 2014 season-opening oval-track race for NASCAR Modifieds, and we were stunned by the changes. Thompson has done much, much more than put fresh pavement where the old road course had been. It’s nothing short of a transformation of the facility.
There’s the freshly-built road course, of course. But there are also newly-constructed professional-style race garages and support facilities. There are improvements to the oval, a 1/10-mile quarter-midget track, a dedicated 4.5-acre autocross area and a 250-foot diameter skid pad. Remaining are the on-site restaurant and the adjacent golf course, but everywhere you look, the familiar Thompson Speedway is now unfamiliar – and terrific.
Another change is to the event schedule. Where once the oval played host to weekly stock-car racing, for 2014 there are only seven oval events on the calendar. The rest of the year is filled with road course events and “track days,” the later being days on which car clubs rent the road course for their own use. Thompson’s own Drivers’ Club has exclusive use of the road course for 30 days of the year.
The transformation is still a work-in-progress, and in June Thompson will celebrate the re-opening of the road with a joint event by the Vintage Sports Car Club of America (VSCCA) and the Vintage Racer Group (VRG). This big weekend will feature Formula Cars, Vintage Production, Sports Cars, Sports Racers, a car show and quite a bit more. We plan on being there.