[ Sports Car Club moving to Topeka ]

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Aug 23, 2001 by Michael Hooper Capital-Journal

Sports Car Club moving to Topeka

Headquarters: SCCA relocating its corporate offices to Forbes Field

See HEADQUARTERS, page 10A

Headquarters: Forbes lands SCCA

By Michael Hooper

The Capital-Journal

Competing against such cities as Atlanta, Denver and Birmingham, Ala., Topeka won a major coup Wednesday in attracting the corporate headquarters of the Sports Car Club of America.

Lured by the growing motor sports industry in Kansas, the quality of life in Topeka and a $500,000 incentive package from the state, the organization decided to move its 50-employee headquarters from the Denver area to Forbes Field by November 2002.

Go Topeka, an economic development organization, also committed $70,000 to bring SCCA to town.

"I'm pleased to announce we have found a new home," said Steve Johnson, president and chief executive officer of SCCA.

The club, with 60,000 members, has been based in Denver for 30 years. The SCCA is a professional motorsports organization that annually sanctions 2,000 events nationwide.

The announcement brought enthusiastic cheers from representatives from the motor sports industry, business and government at a news conference at the Metropolitan Topeka Airport Authority office.

Another reason SCCA chose Topeka was because the city has had the SCCA's Solo II National Championships at Forbes since 1995. More than 1,500 participants have signed up for this year's event Sept. 10 to 14.

The MTAA will build a 20,000-square-foot office and lease it to SCCA, said David Stremming, MTAA president. The office will be between Forbes and Heartland Park Topeka.

Having SCCA's corporate offices at Forbes "will bring worldwide exposure to the city of Topeka and the state of Kansas," Stremming said.

The SCCA and its SCCA Pro Racing Ltd. subsidiary will move all national administration, management and operations into the new office.

Johnson said the move to Topeka will provide SCCA with "a wonderful growth center for years to come and will put Topeka on the map as not only the capital of Kansas, but the grass-roots motorsports capital of the world."

Johnson said SCCA will be active in Topeka.

"We're looking forward to bringing new people to Topeka, as well as creating opportunities for current residents," he said. "Topeka, we will make you proud."

JoAnne Jensen, vice chairman of the SCCA board, was grateful for the financial incentives offered to the club to move to Topeka. But financial incentives alone didn't make the deal happen.

Other cities offered more money, Stremming said.

The SCCA wants to be in Topeka, Jensen said.

Topeka has the quality of life and values to match the club's members, she said.

"Our staff will be raising their families here," said Jensen, who lives in Phoenix and represents club members from California, Arizona and Nevada.

She noted that the club's 13-member board of directors voted unanimously in favor of the move to Topeka.

Gov. Bill Graves said SCCA's decision to move to Topeka will solidify Kansas as a leading state in the motor sports industry.

Kansas already is home to the National Hot Rod Association drag races and the World of Outlaws Series dirt-track racing event, both at Heartland Park, plus the Kansas Speedway's NASCAR Winston Cup race and the Indy Racing League.

Graves said that when he had dinner with President Bush recently, Linda Graves told Bush that her husband was a "motor head." When living in Salina, he used to go to Belleville to watch races.

The Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce and the SCCA Kansas Region also assisted in the relocation of SCCA headquarters.

Dean Ferrell, chairman of Go Topeka, said the $70,000 incentive to the SCCA was the first major investment that Go Topeka has made to attract new jobs.

Steve Kelly, director of the Business Development Division of the Kansas Department of Commerce and Housing, said the state offer to the SCCA includes $50,000 from the Kansas Economic Opportunity Initiatives Fund to help with the cost of establishing the headquarters; between $50,000 and $65,000 in training dollars representing $1,000 per job; about $20,000 in tax credits for the capital investment to build the office; $97,500 in job-creation tax credits; and a sales tax exemption of approximately $135,000 for the cost of building the office. Construction of the building is expected to cost about $2 million.

There also is the potential of using an attraction development grant for the development of a motorsports museum, amounting to $125,000 to $150,000, Kelly said.

"It's all based on their performance," he said.

Loren Pearson, board member for the SCCA Kansas region, said the negotiations to bring SCCA to Topeka began about 14 months ago.

"The reason this happened is because of Dave Stremming and his board," Pearson said.

Vic Miller, chairman of the Shawnee County Commission, noted that Topeka lost 59 jobs this week at the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe shops. That decision was based on economic decisions, not on the community.

The SCCA's decision to move to Topeka was based on what is in the community.