Race of Champions (modified racing)

Race of Champions

Country	United States of America and Canada
Tire suppliers	Hoosier
Official website	https://www.rocmodifiedseries.com/

The Race of Champions is a racing organization which sanctions eight different series on asphalt and dirt surfaces, and promotes an annual marquee racing weekend featuring one of the oldest continuing championship races in the United States.

The Race of Champions 250 originated in 1951 as the National Open on the dirt surfaced Langhorne Speedway in Middletown Township, Bucks County, near the borough of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, a northern suburb of Philadelphia. In order to secure the strongest modified field possible, promoters Al Gerber and Irv Fried guaranteed starting spots in the race to the track champions at many of the top short-tracks in the northeast.^[1]

After the 1971 event the speedway was closed, and the race was rebranded the Race of Champions. The event was relocated first to Trenton Speedway in New Jersey, subsequently to Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, and then back to New Jersey at the Flemington Speedway.^[2][3][4] The process of awarding the guaranteed starting positions in the annual Race of Champions was replaced with the 'Trail of Champions', a touring series of special events held at venues throughout the northeast, and which crowned its own champion.^[5][6]

In 1996, promoters Alex Friesen and Andrew Harpell purchased the rights to the event from Al Gerber’s son Joe, and moved the race to the Oswego Speedway in New York. Later that year, Friesen was fatally injured in a snowmobile accident, and Harpell moved forward with plans to expand the business model to sanction races and touring series for other classes of race cars.^[7][8][9] Going into the 2016 season, Joe Skotnicki, a former Super DIRTcar Series director, left his post with World Racing Group and purchased both the dirt and asphalt programs from Harpell.^[10]

The Race of Champions Touring Series has grown to a family of stock car racing series on both dirt and asphalt including asphalt modifieds, dirt and asphalt sportsman, late models, super stock and the 4 cylinder dash. It was nominated for and won Best Touring Series on the 51's (which is an annual fan voted awards) for the 2017 season. In the 2019 season a TQ Midget Series was introduced into the Race of Champions Group. Andy Jankowiak became the inaugural series champion at Lake Erie Speedway. Also in 2019 the Race of Champions began experimenting with sim racing via iRacing.com one of the most well-known sim racing services.^[11]

The Race of Champions Asphalt Modified Series was first developed by Harpell in 1994 as the New York Modified Series.^[12] It was rebranded upon the creation of the Dirt Modified Tour in 2005.^[13]

The Race of Champions Dirt Modified Tour was formed in 2005 as an alternative for dirt modified and sportsman cars.^[13] The Dirt 602 Sportsman Modified Series continues on, but the modified portion was disbanded in 2017.

The Race of Champions 250 is the yearly stock car race using modified race cars and is the direct descendant of the National Open. Although the first 14 open championships were held on a dirt surface, Langhorne Speedway was paved in 1965, and the event has since been held on asphalt surfaces. The tracks hosting the event have ranged from the .375 mile Lake Erie Speedway in Erie, Pennsylvania to the 2.5 mile Pocono Raceway tri-oval.^[9]

• Official website