San Andreas Central Motorsport Association (Saint Andrews)

## Info

SACMA offers a wide spectrum of automotive sporting events and venues, with top of the line safety regulations set by the International motorsport association, the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile). SACMA also has strong contacts to the motor racing industry in the United States with associations such as IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) or NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing). Set up with the latest guidelines and requirements, SACMA will be able to provide international-level venues to it's customers alongside professionally sanctioned series' and events for both professional and amateur sections of the motor racing community.

## History

Alcohol prohibition was set in action at the early 20th Century in the United States Of America, but this prohibition did not reach the Caribbean Islands nor San Andreas. This meant that alongside Caribbean Islands, San Andreas offered a good route to smuggle moonshine and other alcohol beverages into the mainland. This supply route to California got really popular due to the high demand of illegal alcohol, but another thing that had high demand was performance parts. Moonshiners used souped up cars to out-run the authorities in the 1920's and 1930's, which meant that the cars needed some muscle. Due to the metal manufacturing in Los Santos at that time, factories started to make carefully crafted performance parts deliberately to moonshiners, as alcohol was a big export product for the commonwealth.

The moonshiners who were hooning around the rural south of the USA were eventually picking up some serious skill sets in terms of driving a motorized vehicle. Beefs started to form between the moonshiners about who was the best driver. The only natural solution to this was to set up few oak barrels on an empty wheat or corn field and start racing. This was the official beginning of dirt track racing in the USA. Dirt track racing went on till the late 1940's when the first paved tracks made their appearance. Sooner than people could say stock car racing, the sport blew up in the 1960's with big market involving the sport and big audiences being interested to see manufacturers and drivers battle it out on the track.

The alcohol prohibition was lifted in 1933, thus decreasing the export of alcohol from San Andreas. This left a gaping hole in the exports, which was eventually filled with parts to supply the USA's automotive market. Obviously the parts needed to be tested extensively before sales, manufacturers and in the past, moonshiners had sent identical cars to the Island to test these parts on. As the lots got filled with test vehicles, someone got the idea to search the nearest farm with a big open space and start racing these cars. This was obviously influenced by the stuff happening at the other side of the pond, but for slightly different reasons.

Years went by and this popular past-time for factory workers started to grow bigger and bigger. The idea of going fast in front of a crowd excited many newcomers into auto racing, which eventually grew the sport. As the sport grew, the venues grew into dedicated dirt racetracks. In the late 1950's, the first ever paved racing track was laid down on the property, which is now days known as the Los Santos Forum Stadium. Stock car racing was becoming a big commercial sport in the US, thus the demand for parts increased once again. Car makes started building special models dedicated for stock car racing, and the teams would soup them up even more to give them that leading edge in the battle. As San Andreas' supply companies were busy making parts for the teams and manufacturers overseas, they decided to lend these parts into their own out-dated cars. And that's where stuff got real in San Andreas as well.

Going into the 1960's San Andreas had it's first ever motor racing governing body, the San Andreas auto racing club (SAAC). SAAC scheduled a in-land stock car series, which was completely set appart from what was going on in the states, NASCAR. This was due to many technical disadvantages that San Andreas had due to being a small independent Island. The racers couldn't have the newest cars due to importation being extremely painful process back in the days, so they settled to race usually one generation older vehicles in San Andreas. This formed the San Andreas Stock Car League (SASCL), which gave the Island it's own healthy dose of motorsport.

Driving fast straight had always been a thing that interested many people, especially the mechanics, but it had never really been a thing before the 1950's. During the stock car mania, the mechanics who were responsible to build these fast racing machines were spending their free time differently. They took their personal cars to Bone County in the state of Las Venturas, marked down a half mile racetrack that was bullet-straight and hammered it from the line, side by side. This was the start of drag racing in the state, which will be a story for another time.

The Island's stock car racing scene went on, though slightly behind USA's scene technically, but it was still a notable racing series. It gained publicity to the point where it was actually aired on television in the USA. It was not a prime time show, but it was some good publicity for the knuckleheads who were doing it. The first notable international event that was hosted on the soil of San Andreas was the 1975 Los Santos SpeedWeekend, which featured a full-lenght road course race in the heart of downtown Los Santos. A street circuit was built around the area of market, and the stock car drivers converted their setups to comply with the requirements of the road course circuit. This was another turning point in the motor racing history of the Island due to road racing being introduced for the first time in a notable form. This gave the European form of racing more lift in San Andreas, even though the whole race event was carried through with stock cars.

Everything went well and nothing especially notable happened until the early 2000's when the wave of Economical crisis' started to roll in. The small island was hit particularly hard by the effects of such crisis, and forced many of the workshops, factories and suppliers to board up their windows and call it a day. This was a devastating blow to the auto racing community, which slowly started to drift away into a void. By 2010, all motor racing more or less seized to exist in San Andreas in the legal form that is. Venues were demolished or left behind to rot, cars were exported back to the US in hopes of getting some pennies back and the organizers closed their associations due to lack of funding to run proper racing events. Everything went silent, racing was swept off the map for good.