Topeka ? Welcome to Heartland Park, home of this weekend’s Sports Car Club of America National Championship Runoffs.

Where is the security guard to stop me from walking up to the paddock of GTL-class title hopeful Chris Bovis of Lawrence? Nowhere to be found. This is fan-friendly racing. No walls to keep the spectators from the drivers.

More than 600 amateur drivers in 25 classes will compete Friday through Sunday.

Bovis, who will try to gain the pole position in today’s final day of qualifying, races Friday at 10:25 a.m. against drivers from 14 other states and two Canadian provinces.

Bob Clark, the mechanic Bovis flew down from Wisconsin, is eyeballing the 1.6-liter Honda engine of the hand-built, tube-frame race car. Andee Bovis, Chris’ wife, is scraping the junk off the tires.

The driver, whose day job is marketing director for Hyper Technology in Lawrence, is lamenting falling Wednesday out of the pole position and into second.

Racing has become such a popular sport, but it will take ignoramuses, instead of polished racing writers, asking questions of the drivers for it to pull in new fans.

Listen to this story and see if you think I might qualify: The last time I attempted to change a tire, about 25 years ago, after getting off work about 1 a.m., I put the jack where the front and back doors meet and jacked it as high as I could. The car was titling severely when a woman drove by and hollered, “You moron! That’s not where you put the jack. Put it above the tire.”

So how important is the pole position anyway?

“It’s just an ego thing,” said Bovis, a Chicago native who has called Lawrence home for four years. “Any chance to be up front and to have the psychological advantage of being faster for one lap is nice, but being the fastest over 18 laps (on the 2.5-mile circuit) is what counts. Starting first does help you sleep the night before the race.”

Which is more important, having a fast car or being a skilled driver?

“A good driver can get a bad car to work,” Bovis said. “A good car can mask a lot of inconsistencies in driving, but when you come here you really need to be on your game as a driver, and the car prep really needs to be right.”

Do you end up hating your competitors?

“It’s pretty fierce out on track, but when we get back in here, we all sit around and talk,” Bovis said. “I ended up loaning a couple of axles to a guy who beat me later in the day. He lent me brakes later on that kept me out on the track. It’s kind of a good karma thing.”

Why spend money to race?

“There’s nothing that satisfies my need for competition like doing this,” Bovis said. “I played basketball and other sports as a kid. As far as the mental concentration and the discipline and the sheer competitiveness and the sense of being on edge driving, you cannot compare it to anything else.”

It looks as if it sure beats seeing siren lights flashing in the rear-view mirror. Again.