Neil Upchurch, Texas racing icon, announces his retirement after 53 years in the sport

January 6, 2011

With the completion of the 35th consecutive Texas Pro Sedans racing season, I am hereby notifying all concerned of my full retirement from racing and working in behalf of TPS.

Neil Upchurch at his last race as TPS Race Director, October 10, 2009

For 53 years, I’ve been involved at all levels of auto racing. I tried to retire after the 1997 season, but returned to TPS when I felt it was essential to assure the continuance of TPS. I announced at the 2009 TPS Awards Dinner that I was stepping down from the position of TPS Race & Administrative Director, but would continue during the 2010 season as the TPS Administrative Director in the interest of organizational continuity, which I did throughout the 2010 racing season.

I have worked tirelessly to solicit sponsors to supplement and increase TPS race purses. Frequently sponsor searches proved fruitless. I worked hard to promote, arrange and pay to repair lacking TPS purses due to reduced pit gate payments to TPS during past seasons.

To insure my fiduciary responsibility and the legal management of the TPS Treasury, I have refunded all 2011 member dues, but will continue my TPS work until the 2010 TPS IRS return is completed after-which, I will not do future Texas Pro Sedans work.

I understand that CCS owner Dan Monroe and TPS Race Director David Mackey have negotiated a schedule in principle for several race dates and that David has sent a contract to Dan Monroe and that TPS racing at CCS depends upon prompt contract signing by Dan. TPS car owners have been advised they should wait for David’s notification of the signing before spending money on their cars. Approval of a 2011 TPS race schedule at CCS rests with Dan Monroe and is TPS’s only chance for a 2011 racing season solely at CCS. I won’t see any of the races, but I support TPS Driver’s and CCS’s joint arrangement next season.

I sincerely hope, but seriously doubt that local area racing can recover and exist as it once did. It distresses me to see car owners and drivers having to pay more, travel more to race at tracks and then compete for small purses usually made only from a percentage of their own pit pass purchases or worse, no percentage at all. Racing veterans can remember a time when tracks actually promoted and advertised the sale of admission tickets and compensated racers for providing the show and attraction from part of track ticket and concession sales. I do understand that tracks face economic problems, but so do the car owners, drivers and crews. Perhaps the public is no longer a willing customer to buy admission tickets to fund local track operations. It has become easier for some tracks to exist by simply selling expensive pit passes than by working, promoting and advertising to increase their spectator sales base. Today’s racing reminds me of buying an amusement ticket on a carnival ride. The only difference is that racers bring their amusement ride (their own cars) to the carnival.

When TIDA-LM ceased operations thirteen years ago, I wrote “We have witnessed the gradual degradation of our sport, at the local level. We have seen local tracks closing or losing their fan base, car counts and profit potential. Minor league local racing simply cannot compete with Saturday night FREE televised NASCAR races. It’s not even a fair fight. Most local tracks just go dark on NASCAR race nights. Some tracks even naively pay 10% of their purses to NASCAR for affiliation membership sanction fees and to purchase higher priced NASCAR insurance. The big dog continues to eat more of its own puppies”.

The proudest thing I’ve done in sports has been to dedicate 53 years of my life to our sport of auto racing. I very much appreciate all of the fine people who either worked with or for me. They all know who they are. I’m thankful for the support of the loyal members of Texas and TIDA Pro Sedans, the TIDA Late Model Series and Texas World Speedway’s Texas Race of Champions and Texas Grand Prix participants and all of our generous, but hard to acquire sponsors. I sincerely thank all of the fine people from my driving days. I thank all of my co-owners, co-drivers, crew people and sponsors who helped me own and drive many great race cars for more than 20 years.

As I have been doing for the past eleven years, I plan to continue working in San Antonio high school football as the PA Announcer at Heroes Stadium and the Alamodome.

My racing career is over. It has been quite a ride. I have enjoyed almost every mile of it. I won’t be seeing you around the tracks in the future. If you have time in your race through life, please stay in touch with me, say hello and remember this “old racer”, who I sincerely believe, worked hard for the good of our sport of Texas auto racing.

Thanks to all of you.

Signed Neil Upchurch
Founder, Driver, Race Director, Administrative Director - Texas Pro Sedans, TIDA Pro Sedans, TIDA-LM’s and TWS

By Neil Upchurch
Photo by Tory Christopher

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Tagged: Neil Upchurch, Texas Grand Prix, Texas International Drivers Association, Texas Pro Sedans, Texas Race of Champions, TIDA, TPS