Sat, Apr 18, 2015

Tulips & Other Spring Flowers

Smartt Field

About this event

Tulips & Other Spring Flowers—an April RoadRally to Pere Marquette State Park

Still got cabin fever, the winter blahs?

The St. Louis Region, SCCA, has a great antidote for you.

Join us April 18 for Tulips & Other Spring Flowers, a springtime RoadRally/tour from historic Smartt Field near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers in St. Charles County, Mo., to Pere Marquette State Park in Grafton, Ill.—by way of Alton, Ill., the Great River Road, historic Elsah, Ill., and the country roads that surround Pere Marquette State Park.

Tulips & Other Spring Flowers is a casual, non-timed event you may complete at you own leisure. It employs tulip diagrams for route instructions and is designed as an enjoyable excursion of about 70 miles. When you arrive at the end, you’ll be at Pere Marquette’s imposing lodge overlooking the Illinois River.

For teams interested in national points, Tulips & Other Spring Flowers is sanctioned as a Regional GTA.

Finally, we have been invited to conduct registration in the airport terminal. So when you arrive, look for the blue building.

PLEASE NOTE:  MotorsportReg.com online registration will close at 6 p.m. on Friday, April 17. However, on April 18 you may register at the start at Smartt Field at the time noted below.

Start:

St. Charles County Airport (Historic Smartt Field)

6390 Grafton Ferry Road

Portage Des Sioux, MO 63373

N 38°55.641 / W 90°26.047

Registration:               1200 – 1245 Hrs (Noon – 12:45 p.m., the day of the event at the start)

Drivers Meeting:        1245 Hrs (12:45 p.m.)

First Car Departs:       1301 Hrs (1:01 p.m.)

Entry Fee:                    $20.00 (cash or check, due at registration on April 18)

What You Need:         a Driver, a Navigator, and a Car—and a Clipboard and Some Pens/Pencils, Etc.

Information:                stlscca.org or 314.922.6120

About the St. Louis Region, SCCA. The SCCA’s St. Louis Region, with more than 700 members, offers Club Racing, Performance Driving Experience (PDX), RallyCross, RoadRally, Solo (autocross), and Street Survival School programs to educate and provide safe environments for individuals to enjoy their street-legal (daily driver) cars and purpose-built race cars.  The region is home to more than 80 national champions in Club Racing, RallyCross, RoadRally, and Solo, and has been recognized three times by the Sports Car Club of America as the Region of the Year in its member category. In 2015, the region will host three Club Racing weekends, a national RoadRally weekend, and multiple local Solo and RallyCross events. To learn more about the St. Louis Region, visit www.stlscca.org or our St. Louis Region SCCA Facebook page.

About St. Charles County Airport/Smartt Field. Established by the U.S. Navy as a training school for pilots in 1941, just before the our country’s entry into World War II, “Smartt Field” was named in honor of Ensign Joseph Gillespie Smartt, of Robertson, Mo. Ensign Smartt was killed in the Japanese Imperial Navy’s attack on our Naval Air Station at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, and was the first St. Charles County serviceman to lose his life in the war. (Smartt was one of 18 service members and two civilian contractors killed in the attack. In addition to Smartt Field, the Navy named a destroyer escort, DE-257, in honor of Smartt.) In 1957, the Federal government deeded the airport to the City of St. Charles and St. Charles County, with the city relinquishing its interest in the airport in 1976. Today, Smartt Field is classified as a reliever airport by the FAA. In addition to general aviation, the airport serves as the home of the Missouri Wing of the Commemorative Air Force, the Spirit of St. Louis EAA chapter, and the Silver Swallows, an Ozark Airlines alumni association. For the St. Louis Region, April 18 will be our first visit to Smartt Field since we raced there in the 1950s. (Yes, we did! And we have the programs to prove it.)

About Pere Marquette State Park. Famous for its exceptional beauty, this 8,000-acre park in Jersey County offers spectacular views of the Illinois River and its backwaters from several points atop the park’s bluffs. Visitors to the park can take advantage of a variety of year-round recreational opportunities, including horseback riding, camping, hiking, fishing, hunting, and boating. The park’s massive lodge, built by the CCC during the Depression, also serves as a conference center and vacation destination. The park’s visitor center provides a three-dimensional map of the park and a wealth of other displays and exhibits concerning the Illinois River, wildlife habitat, local history, and geology. The park is named for Father (Pere) Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary, who with explorer and cartographer Louis Joliet, paddled down the Mississippi in 1673 in search of a passage to the Pacific Ocean. The last time the St. Louis Region visited Pere Marquette State Park was in 2001, when the region hosted the SCCA’s United States RoadRally Challenge. The lodge at Pere Marquette served as rally headquarters.

Bottom line: Join us April 18 for a great time.

Jim Heine

Chairman and Rallymaster

314.922.6120

Event requirements

The standard SCCA rules regarding day-of-the-event road-rally registration will be observed (i.e., valid drivers license and insurance, vehicle inspection [self-inspection by the rally team], signing of waivers, including appropriate minor releases and waivers, etc.).  Appropriate forms will be available at registration.

Smartt Field

Portage Des Sioux, MO

Organizer

Road Rally organized by

SCCA - St. Louis Region - Road Rally

Event over!