The American Speed Association (ASA) is a sanctioning body of motorsports in the United States formed in 1968. The Association was based in Pendleton, Indiana, and later in Daytona Beach, Florida. The ASA sanctioned asphalt and dirt tracks in their ASA Member Track program along with racing series in the United States and Canada.
The ASA was most famous for a national touring series which began in 1973 but was discontinued in 2004 due to financial difficulties. In 2005, ASA became primarily a short track sanctioning clearinghouse under the leadership of Dennis Huth.
On December 10, 2022, racing promoter Track Enterprises announced that the ASA would make a return to sanction the 2023 ASA STARS National Tour, a super late model racing series, under a licensing agreement with ARCA. [1] Previous to the announcement, the organization had not been active since 2014.
ASA National Tour
The national touring series used late model racecar body styles, where they raced primarily in the Midwest. Many series races were televised on several cable channels (especially The Nashville Network) from 1991 until 2004.
ASA is notable as the only nationally touring stock car series that used passenger car technology for its racing engines. Unlike NASCAR, which up until 2012 required carbureted engines for all its nationally touring series, ASA required fuel injection in all of its engines. During the mid-1980s, it also became one of the first stock car groups to offer a six-cylinder, lower-price alternative to the popular V8 engines, designed for less power but more race-capable for drivers. Following the 2000 rule changes, it was also known for introducing crate motors to a national audience. (NASCAR adopted crate motors in 2006 for the Grand National Division, presently known as the ARCA Menards Series East and ARCA Menards Series West.)
MTV lawsuit
In 1991, Gaylord Entertainment (owners of The Nashville Network) and an independent production company, Group Five Sports, signed an agreement where the ASA would add live race broadcasts to their schedule.
The first live ASA ACDelco Challenge Series race was held in June 1991 at Nashville Speedway USA. The race featured NASCAR star Darrell Waltrip (who won the ASA's first Challenge of Champions race in 1972) defeating ASA regular Bob Senneker. The exposure led to national television coverage for the entire season by TNN and Group Five doing the production.
In 1999, CBS (which purchased TNN in 1997) officials announced the purchase of 25% of the American Speed Association from owner Rex Robbins in exchange for live television rights to the entire ASA ACDelco Series schedule for five years. CBS made this move after losing coverage of NASCAR races, and the network chose to market the ASA on its CBS Cable family of networks (TNN and CMT).
When Viacom took over TNN in 2000, CBS Cable operations were shut down as TNN's Charlotte and Nashville offices were closed and the signals transferred to MTV Networks for the creation of a channel, Spike TV. At the time, MTV Networks honored its remaining motorsports contracts signed by CBS.
In August 2001, MTV ended its association with ASA and the World of Outlaws (which also had a TNN contract signed by CBS management) by announcing they would tape delay the popular sprint car Knoxville Nationals, and also tape delay the two remaining ASA ACDelco Series races. The ASA filed a lawsuit in an attempt to stop the tape delays, but dropped the lawsuit after MTV agreed to air one of the two races in the lawsuit live. MTV terminated the five-year CBS contract after less than 20 months.
Brian Robbins, the son of the ASA founder Rex Robbins, blasted MTV, saying, "It appears new (MTV) management does not have the same vision for the partnership as we had with TNN (CBS Cable) at the time we made the agreement."[2][3]
Sale to Steve Dale
The 2003 ASA National Tour season had drastic changes because of the move of television coverage to the lower-rated (but motorsports-focused) Speed Channel. Robbins ended his involvement with ASA.
Car owner Steve Dale, along with a group of investors, purchased the ASA at the end of the 2003 season, and began massive changes for 2004 hoping for further expansion of the series.
The ASA then further expanded its Member Track program, hoping to deliver tracks to their side with a lower sanctioning fee than rival NASCAR's sanctioning fees. ASA did not have the high-dollar or high-exposure status NASCAR's Dodge Weekly Series offered.
Under Steve Dale, the ASA purchased a fairly new Midwest-based late model series called the US Pro Series. The series used "crate" engines and "template" bodies to help develop a new "Approved Body Configuration" template for race cars. The standardized bodies saved money for teams at every track which wasn't a NASCAR-sanctioned track. The US Pro Series was renamed to the ASA Late Model Series. When the new ASA Late Model series began, it debuted with Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart racing in the inaugural race under the new name and ownership.
The ASA also purchased the Southern Modified Auto Racing Teams (SMART), a modified racing organization, and the Speed Truck Challenge, a West Coast-based short-track series using compact pickup truck-shaped fiberglass bodies, in hopes to help sanction both series.
Car liveries began to take a new look in 2004, with the cars having numbers on the rear fenders and sponsors on the door, which is opposite of what most stock cars traditionally have used.
Despite these expansion attempts, financial problems developed midway in the 2004 season when the ASA began to cancel National Tour races and television contracts. By the end of the season, the series' demise came when the series raced at Lowe's Motor Speedway. In October 2004, during the driver's meeting for the 99-lap Aaron's 99 event (held after NASCAR Nextel Cup qualifying for the UAW-GM Quality 500), they informed competitors they did not have funds to pay teams after the race, and they asked for an extension. This despite the fact that Lowe's Motor Speedway had wired the entire purse and sanction fee to ASA as per the sanction agreement. Disappointed by Steve Dale's decision to cancel his trip to the event, the track impounded ASA's vehicles and equipment. A settlement was made where Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (owners of Atlanta Motor Speedway and Lowe's Motor Speedway) decided to pay the competitors directly after the final ASA race at Atlanta.
The sanctioning body collapsed and was shut down after the 2004 season, and the National Tour folded.
Dennis Huth era
After the National Tour folded, ASA's Member Track program and asaracing.com domain were sold to Racing Speed Associates, which was run by former NASCAR official Dennis Huth, along with other ASA-sanctioned short track programs, the ASA Midwest Tour, ASA Midwest Truck Tour, ASA Truck Series, ASA Pro Truck Series, ASA ProAutoSports, ASA Advance Testing British Columbia Late Model Tour and the ASA NW Sprint Car Series (NSRA).
NASCAR took advantage of the demise of the organization and started a Modified series in the Southeast, the Whelen Southern Modified Tour. The series features identical rules to NASCAR's northern brethren, which it merged with in 2017. In response, the Racing Speed Associates started the ASA Southern Modified Racing Team concept to once again bring modifieds to the ASA.
The American Stockcar League (which used the ASA formula cars) was run under the sanctioning of Mid-American Racing in an effort to keep the National Tour active. The ASL ran only four races before its founder, Gary Vercauteren, died from a heart attack on October 6, 2005. Technical director and former racer Doug Strasburg took over Mid-American Racing, but conducted a major house cleaning early in 2006 and pared down Mid-American Racing, ending the ASL after only one season.
After NASCAR announced it was ending its AutoZone Elite divisions, which featured regional late model racing, following the 2006 season, the ASA began sanctioning replacement series around the United States. The ASA Midwest Tour and ASA Northwest Tour were launched for 2007 and the ASA Southeast Asphalt Tour for 2008. The sanctioning of the Midwest Tour was given to ARCA in 2013, becoming the ARCA Midwest Tour, which indirectly reunited the series with NASCAR after the purchase of ARCA in 2018.
In 2008, ASA began sanctioning the ISCARS sport compact series, which had been independent since breaking from NASCAR at the end of the 2003 season. Also, the ASA Member Track program added a national short-track points championship similar to NASCAR's Whelen All-American Series concept, with the winner receiving a test with Joe Gibbs Racing, which sponsors the program through its Joe Gibbs Driven Racing Oil brand. The ASA sanctioning of the former Goody's Dash Series took place until 2011.
ASA Free State 500
On January 31, 2010, ASA Racing made history as the first American sanctioning body to race in the Republic of South Africa. The ASA Free State 500 took place at the Phakisa Freeway located in Welkom, Free State, South Africa; it was also the first major race to be hosted on the circuit's oval. Contested using used fourth-generation Cup cars, John Mickel from the United Kingdom passed Toni McCray from California on the last lap to win the 207-lap (500km) event.
The Free State 500 was planned as part of the ASA Transcontinental Series, a track championship hosted at Phakisa Freeway's oval.[4] However, no further races were ever held.
Naming dispute
The related split of the assets of the former American Speed Association led to a naming dispute when the Late Model Series was reacquired by Ron Varney, while the other portions of the American Speed Association were sold to Huth.[5]
On December 4, 2007, Dennis Huth filed a lawsuit against the ASA Late Model Series seeking to invalidate and cancel the ASA Late Model Series trademark registration. The ASA Late Model Series responded that the lawsuit is frivolous and without merit and counter-sued Huth for damages caused by suit. [6]
On January 14, 2009, the naming dispute was settled. Both parties were allowed to keep the "ASA" name, but the ASA Late Model Series was forced to come up with a new logo, and both parties agreed to inform the racing public that the ASA Late Model Series is not related to, affiliated with, nor sponsored or endorsed by American Speed Association or ASA Racing. [7]
On October 11, 2010, it was announced that in an order signed on October 7, 2010, by US District Court Judge Matthew Kennelly, has permanently barred Louis R. (Ron) Varney, Jr, ASA Late Model Series, LLC and all those acting in concert or participation with them, including specifically ASALMS, LLC from any further use of the ASA or ASA Late Model Series brand on or in connection with automobile race events anywhere in the United States. The injunction was delivered at the 2010 Oktoberfest Race Weekend at the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway. The Varney-led organization has not been active following the injunction.
The Pat Schauer Memorial Rookies of the Year is named after Pat Schauer, of Watertown, Wisconsin, who was killed October 4, 1981, at Winchester Speedway during an ASA race. Schauer was the rookie point leader at the time.
Columbus Motor Speedway (Hosted the season opener throughout the early-to-mid 1990s. The field for the 200-lap feature was set by twin 50-lap qualifying races, the only event on the schedule to utilize this format.)
Richard Allen Bickle Jr. is an American former professional stock car racing driver. Now retired from NASCAR racing, Bickle, who never completed a full season in the NASCAR Cup Series, had a long history in short track racing. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel described him in 2012 as a "stud on the short tracks in the late 1980s and early '90s and a journeyman who rarely caught a break in NASCAR." He won three NASCAR truck races and had a career-best fourth-place finish in the Cup Series in 218 career NASCAR starts.
Jim Sauter was an American stock car racing driver from Necedah, Wisconsin. He formerly raced in all three of NASCAR's national series, and is best known for having been a test driver for the International Race of Champions, as well as winning two championships in the Midwest-based ARTGO Challenge Series.
Chris Wimmer is an American professional stock car racing driver. He has raced mostly in short track competition and as high as the NASCAR Busch Series. Wimmer competed in the ASA Midwest Tour where he finished as high as second in his final season (2013). He has run a more limited schedule of touring events since.
Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway is a motorsport racetrack located at the Nashville Fairgrounds near downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The track is the second-oldest continually operating track in the United States. The track held NASCAR Grand National/Winston Cup races from 1958 to 1984.
The Wisconsin International Raceway is an asphalt stock car racing oval and dragstrip in the Town of Buchanan, in Outagamie County, just outside Kaukauna, Wisconsin, USA.
I-70 Motorsports Park, also known as I-70 Speedway, is a multi-purpose motorsports facility near Interstate 70 east of Odessa, Missouri, USA. The track, first opened in 1969, and has since been completely rebuilt and renovated in 2021 under new ownership.
Southern National Motorsports Park is a 4/10-mile auto racing track in Lucama, North Carolina.
The ARTGO Challenge Series was a late model short track racing series that ran in the Midwestern United States from 1975 until 1998. Many race car drivers used the ARTGO series as a stepping stone to get into ASA, ARCA, and NASCAR.
There has been auto racing in Illinois for almost as long as there have been automobiles. Almost every type of motorsport found in the United States can be found in Illinois. Both modern and historic tracks exist in Illinois, including NASCAR's Chicagoland Speedway and Gateway International Speedway. Notable drivers from Illinois include Danica Patrick, Tony Bettenhausen, and Fred Lorenzen.
Modified stock car racing, also known as modified racing and modified, is a type of auto racing that involves purpose-built cars simultaneously racing against each other on oval tracks. First established in the United States after World War II, this type of racing was early-on characterized by its participants' modification of passenger cars in pursuit of higher speeds, hence the name.
The ASA Midwest Tour is a pavement Super Late Model auto racing series based in the Midwestern United States with its headquarters in Oregon, Wisconsin. It was a developmental series of the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), and currently of the American Speed Association, along with the CRA Super Series.
Rockford Speedway was a 1/4 mile short track high banked asphalt oval located in Loves Park, Illinois on Illinois Route 173. Rockford Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway, and World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway are the only racetracks running under NASCAR sanctions in Illinois.
Joe Shear, Sr. was an American stock car racing driver from Clinton, Wisconsin. He won an estimated 350 races in his career, including four of his last five races. Fred Nielsen, Shear's car owner from 1975 to 1984 and 1986 to 1994, said that his team won 250 races and he estimates that Shear won 600 races. He won at least 30 track or touring series championships in his career. Even though he was known as a pavement driver, two of those championships were on the dirt at Freeport, Illinois.
The La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway is a semi-banked asphalt oval racetrack in West Salem, Wisconsin. The outer track is 5/8 mile and the inner track is a 1/4 mile. The speedway has progressive banking in the corners, from 5 degrees on the bottom to 11 degrees on the top. The track was built at the fairgrounds for La Crosse County. It used to host an event on the American Speed Association (ASA) and the ASA Late Model Series before the demise of the series. It currently hosts annual touring events on the ARCA Midwest Tour and Mid American Stock Car Series. It hosts weekly stock car races which are sanctioned by the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series. It was the first NASCAR-sanctioned race track in Wisconsin.
Tim Schendel is an American professional stock car racing driver. A past winner of the Toyota All-Star Showdown and champion of the NASCAR Midwest Tour, he has also competed in the NASCAR Nationwide Series and the ASA Midwest Tour.
Travis Sauter is an American professional stock car racing driver. A regular competitor in several midwestern racing series, he is second on the all-time win list with four Oktoberfest wins at the LaCrosse Fairgrounds Speedway.
Scott Hansen is an American stock car driver from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now retired, Hansen primarily competed in the American Speed Association. He raced for several years in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and Busch Series.
Gary Wayne St. Amant is an American former stock car racing driver from Columbus, Ohio. While he competed in several NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races, his career is most notable for his success in the American Speed Association, winning the National Tour in 1998 and 2000. When the ASA folded after the 2004 season, he found success in the Hooters Pro Cup Series, winning the Northern Division Championship in 2007. With St. Amant having won the Snowball Derby and Winchester 400 twice, along with the All American 400 and Snowflake 100 once, he is the only driver in history besides Chase Elliott to have won all four short-track crown jewel events. He also showed his mentorship to a young Jimmie Johnson in his early ASA days, before his transition to NASCAR. Johnson has since mentioned his appreciation for the coaching while making history himself in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
Tyler Brad Majeski is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving the No. 98 Ford F-150 for ThorSport Racing, as well as in late model racing. He has also competed in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, ARCA Menards Series, and ARCA Menards Series West in the past.
Andrew "Bubba" Pollard is an American stock car racing driver. He currently competes in super late model racing, driving the No. 26 Ford for his own team and part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 88 Chevrolet Camaro for JR Motorsports. He is noted as one of the most successful active super late model drivers, winning the All American 400, Rattler 250, World Crown 300 and the 2014 Southern Super Series championship.
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