NASA Eastern Championship Kicks Off

Mazda racers seek NASA championships at Road Atlanta.

The National Auto Sport Association’s (NASA) Eastern States Championship takes place this weekend at Road Atlanta. For the first time since the organization started having a national event, it’s splitting it into two different events to encourage more participation on both sides of the country.

“We moved it from Mid-Ohio to Miller Motorsports Park [Utah] and had a back and forth to try to service both coasts as best we could,” says NASA’s National Events Manager Will Faules. “You end up with a big regional event where the participation is largely local. So the idea came: What if we could service our members by rotating every year, instead of just two tracks, add other tracks? If that rotation was taking too long to service people, why don’t we do two and service everybody in one year? It seems to be a big hit.”

With more than 300 entries, that appears to be the case. Not only has NASA created two events, but it’s shortened it as well with the intent of not only making it closer, but more accessible as well.

“We’ve shortened it from four days of racing to three days, with almost the same amount of track time – we took away one qualifying session. In this day and age of amateur motorsports, it’s huge. That’s one less day to be out of the office, one less day they need a hotel room, on less day they’ve got to pay crew. Time Trials is now only two days of competition,” says Faules.

One challenge facing NASA was its contingency programs, and how to make sure competitors had access to similar payouts while having two events. Faules says that NASA’s director of sponsorship, Jeremy Croiset, has managed to work with the organization’s partners to expand the contingency programs. That includes Mazda, which will pay $3500 to Mazda competitors for a win in the racing classes if there are 10 or more starters, down to $350 for fifth place. Time Trial competitors can earn up to $500.