This article first appeared in the June, 2014 edition of SportsCar Magazine. SCCA members can read the current and past editions of SportCar digitally here after logging into their account; To become an SCCA member and get SportsCar mailed to your home address monthly in addition to the digital editions, click here.
Jim Wheeler
Chairman of the Club Racing Board
Kansas City Region
SCCA Member Since 1974
“I’ve been interested in racing since I was 5 – I had a go-kart before there was a name for them. I attended my first SCCA event at Bridge Hampton in 1959, and that set the hook. I started autocrossing in 1969, just out of the Navy, continuing through the late 1980s and then my first SCCA Driver’s School was in 1975 at Mid America Raceway in Wentzville, Missouri.
As of the Heartland Park Topeka U.S. Majors Tour over Labor Day, I will have completed a total of 265 SCCA Club races spanning EP, SSC, ITB, Spec Miata, and American Sedan, where I’ve completed by far the most races. I’ve competed in 15 Runoffs since my first in 1998 (missing the event in 2000), and have had two podium finishes (2007 and ’13), with eight top 10s.
The social part of Kansas City Region has always been very active, and attending these social and Club business meetings led me to serve on the Kansas City Region Board of Directors, as the Region’s Race Group Chairman, and as a member of the KVRG BoD.
A bad experience in impound at the Runofffs at Mid-Ohio caused me to apply to become a member of the American Sedan Advisory Committee. I served there for several years and was asked by Bob Dowie, the CRB’s Chairman at the time, to move up to the CRB. Upon Dowie’s retirement from the Chairman position, I became the Chairman, where I’ve served for several years.
Being Chairman of the CRB has exposed me to wonderful, smart people in all phases of the Club. Although it takes a lot of time, it’s also very rewarding.”
