The Colorado Vintage Oval Racers club was founded in 1998 and chose “The Historical and Mechanical preservation of Colorado and regional oval track automobile racing” as its mission. With a history of independently run vintage oval exhibitions held at several tracks over the years, the move to create a new club followed the Colorado Auto Racing Club’s disbanding of its vintage racing division. With Sean Hillis as president, the new club was formed and began offering vintage oval exhibitions at Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska tracks during its first summer season, and has maintained a schedule of 8 to 15 events per year since.
The first CVOR roster was primarily made up of owners of vintage Midgets, Sprint Cars, and a few Modifieds. The club has grown to include a Modified division featuring a number of iconic Lakeside cars and a popular Late Model division, while maintaining a roster of 100-plus members from six states. While not every member owns a vintage race car, as many as 140 cars owned by those in the organization’s roster have been part of the club over the years. Members include former drivers, crew members, and people who celebrate the racing they remember in earlier times.
CVOR on-track events that are part of weekly racing programs are non-competitive but conducted at speeds that simulate racing conditions, with the goal of providing race fans with a chance to see and hear race cars from earlier eras. CVOR members also participate in track-day events at regional venues alongside other vintage clubs. The club has hosted national events at Pikes Peak International Raceway that attracted over 120 cars, as well as the 2010 Belleville Vintage Nationals in Belleville, Kansas, which drew 112 cars from 16 states to the historic High Banks track.
Vintage race car shows have been a mainstay of CVOR’s yearly event schedule. Annual shows at Elway Chevrolet were the highlight of summer months in several years, as were club shows at Lakeside Amusement Park held in honor of the long-closed Lakeside Speedway. The displays have been some of the best lines of communication the club maintains with local race fans.
CVOR continues to honor its historical mission with the acquisition of the charter for the Big Car Racing Association, an organization that hosted some of the most popular Sprint Car races in Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas from 1958 to 1977. With its strong roots in Colorado Racing, perpetuating the BCRA legacy has been a good fit for the club, and CVOR Sprint Cars now run under the BCRA banner at club events
A variation of a saying found in many clubs is true for CVOR: “It’s not the cars, it’s the people”. Many CVOR members have been part of the club for decades, and over the years, lifetime friendships have been made as members share the love of old race cars and the work that goes into restoring, maintaining, and driving them.
The Colorado Vintage Oval Racers received the JC Agajanian Award for their service to Colorado Motorsports in 2025.
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