SRL Southwest Tour

The SPEARS SRL Southwest Tour Series is a Late Model racing league operating since 1985, originally with NASCAR sanction as the NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour and later AutoZone Elite Division, Southwest Series, and before being sanctioned by a group of West Coast racers under the premises of the Stockcar Racing League.

The cars feature a perimeter frame chassis where rails of equal lengths must kick out, compared to the more modern offset chassis where one side is straight and one side kicks out. They weigh 2,900 pounds and have a fiberglass body.

The original NASCAR Southwest Tour began in 1985 and ran until NASCAR discontinued the Elite Division in 2006.

When NASCAR eliminated the Elite Division at the end of the 2006 season, former IRL driver Davey Hamilton's SRL sanctioning body gave the former NASCAR Southwest Tour teams in the Southwest a series to race, under the SRL Wild West Shootout name.

With management of the series now under the control of the Collins family of Mesa Marin (both old and new) tracks, the series decided to return to the more familiar Southwest Tour name in 2008.

Current SRL rules require a Five Star racing body complying with any NASCAR Southwest Tour-approved body from 2000–2006, or SRL since 2007, and complying with the Approved Body Configuration program used nationally in short track racing.

In 2012, officials announced the formation of the Spears S2 Series, which started in 2013. This is a crate late model series giving drivers that ran the SRL Legends Series, which began in 2010, a chance to gain experience in a full-sized stock car. At the same time the S2 Series also gave more experienced drivers the chance to race in a more affordable race car.

For 2016, the series will permit Super Late Models to participate in the series with the United Super Late Model rules used in the Southeast and Midwest to participate in the series, allowing drivers to race in selected national big-money races with the same car.

The SRL has a green-white-checkered finish rule. Nathan Tucker won the first championship under the SRL sanction.

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