Pueblo – The engines growled as each hot rod crept onto the 2-mile track at Pueblo Motorsports Park. Other amateur drivers, busy prepping their cars, paused in respect.
They quickly returned to work, in a ritual that is part race, part car show but mostly the need for speed.
“I can’t afford a country club, but I can’t afford to pay (speeding) tickets either,” said Jeff Kaine of Glenwood Springs, from beneath the hood of his rebuilt 1966 Mustang – a repeat of the car he had in high school.
“If you can’t go fast, what’s the point?”
Colorado has a rich, deep market for car lovers. There are at least 40 car clubs for Colorado gearheads, and they can go as fast and far as their wallets can take them.
The sport could bring four new amateur tracks to the state in the next year – from a slab of pavement for amateurs at an existing pro dirt oval near Lamar to two country clubs with resort amenities on the Eastern Plains.
Amateur drivers in Colorado easily number in the thousands. Just the 12 clubs proposing a track in Arapahoe County include 6,256 members supporting its $2.8 million building plan.
“I love everything about it, even the grease on my hands,” said 54-year-old Jim Reed of Denver, who has owned a dozen hot rods dating back to his teens. “Men, women, kids – everybody out here has one thing in common: They love cars.”
Reed’s latest toy, a racer he fashioned out of a 1976 Chevy Caprice, cost $800 for a dinged-up frame, but another $12,000 in parts and paint, and “worth every penny, unless you asked my wife,” he said.
Warriors young and old
Dozens of occasional speed demons – the weekend warriors, as they call themselves – gathered on a hot Saturday morning to show off their Porsches, Mustangs, MG Midgets, Ferraris, even a souped-up Honda hatchback. The warriors ranged in age from 21-year-old Dan Allen of Denver to 79-year-old Walt Hane of Evergreen.
“You can get as deep in it as your pockets will let you go,” said Jay Gilman, general manager at the Pueblo track, the state’s only full-time amateur track open to the public.
Two country clubs are on pace to join within a year the state’s only private high-end speedway, 44-year-old Aspen Racing and Sports Car Club.
Though nothing formal has been announced, private bidders have proposed turning Pikes Peak International Raceway, which closed in 2005, into a members-only club as well.
“There’s a tremendous demand out there,” said Kevin Rogers, the principal behind the proposed Genoa Motorsports Park country club, a 6.26-mile track east of Limon. “That’s based on the number of phone calls I get saying, ‘When? When? When?”‘
Hane, a test driver and engineer for Ford Motor Co. in the 1950s, said the events have a greater lure than just cars: It’s fun.
“I think people like different parts of it,” he said. “Some people are just in it for the social aspects of getting together with other people who love cars. Some people want to win at all costs, and instead of getting on a pro circuit, they get a vintage car and run that.”
Hane operates a hot-rod shop in Evergreen with his son, Chip. They ship cars all over, including a current deal for a Shelby GT350 for $245,000.
“But you can go out and buy a Mustang six-cylinder for $2,500,” he said. “People get into this because it’s fun, and fun costs different amounts of money. It’s all relative.”
Country-club drivers will shell out big bucks to belong, to sip post-race drinks in stately clubhouses and store their expensive toys in tidy garages.
Rogers’ club will include a landing strip for private planes.
Efforts to interview Claus Wagner of Evergreen, who is developing a four-track country club in Elbert County, were not successful.
Eyeing East of Eden
Colorado Amateur Motorsports Associates, a consortium of car clubs, hopes to build its own track, called East of Eden, in remote eastern Arapahoe County.
Noise and surrounding development pushed out tracks in Mead and Commerce City, but “development isn’t likely that far out; it’s a ways out there,” Arapahoe County Commissioner Frank Weddig said of the East of Eden proposal.
The tracks would be regulated only by the free market, beyond local zoning and business licenses. No state agency regulates amateur racing.
Car clubs include the Western Slope Cruisers in Grand Junction and the Good Times Car Club in Greeley.
“The drivers are out there to support more tracks, maybe all of them,” said Bob Donner of Denver, 76, a sports-car racer since 1953 and a member of the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
Nearby, Donner’s son, David, fussed with his father’s prized Ferrari, which finished sixth at Daytona in 1975.
At the Pueblo track last weekend, auto trailers lined the infield, while others drove their hot rods to the track.
Country-club denizens, by comparison, have their cars waiting, pulled from rented garages, gassed up and ready to run.
“It’s an arrive-and-drive program,” Rogers said.
He would not discuss the cost of membership at his club, but at the Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Ill., which Rogers often uses in comparison to describe his park, the initiation fee is $35,000 followed by $3,000 in annual dues.
The 30 members of the Aspen Club each paid $60,000 to join, then $12,000 a year in dues, said track manager Ken Brown.
With car storage and extra amenities, most drivers pay about $60,000 a year, according to membership information from existing country- club tracks in Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Illinois.
“It takes a unique bunch of people with a lot of money to be able to do that,” Brown said.
For weekend warriors, the cost can be as little as $30 per car a day, up to a few hundred dollars for car-club events.
Track days are as much about showing off the cars as winding them out, more about respect than competition, said Bill Miller of Arvada, a board member with the Colorado chapter of the Shelby American Automobile Club.
He added: “We’re a lot more courteous and respectful to one another out there on the track than we would ever be walking down 16th Street.”
Staff writer Joey Bunch can be reached at 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com.
