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We had been to Michigan Interna-
tional Speedway five years earlier and
it was with a sense of pride that our
reputation (along with Ford’s recom-
mendation) had allowed us to procure
the track. Roger Penske’s Motorsports
International had purchased MIS in
1972 and they owned it until 1999.
During that time we had rented
Pocono Raceway (for SAAC-14) and
when a change in CART’s schedule
late in the game suddenly conflicted
with SAAC’s date, we were able to
work things out amicably with Penske
so both events could proceed without
interfering with one another and we
got a feather in our cap for that. In
1999 MIS was purchased by Interna-
tional Speedway Corporation and a
year or two after SAAC-24, a Corvette
club was using the track when they ex-
perienced a serious wreck which
caused some damage to the track. The
track adopted the attitude of “
Who
needs this?
” so when clubs or organi-
zations inquired about renting the
track they were simply told, “
No, we
don’t rent the track
.”
But we were persistent. Our repu-
tation from the previous convention
there (SAAC-24) was spotless. We also
got a positive reference from Roger
Penske and a good word from Ford’s
public relations department. As a re-
sult, the track made an exception for
SAAC.
Another thing that made this con-
vention especially memorable was
that Jeff Burgy had managed to track
down two “missing” Cobra concept
cars that were thought to have been
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Summer 2017 82