Sears Point International Raceway, Inc. - California

Beautifully engraved specimen certificate from Sears Point International Raceway printed in 1968. This historic document was printed by American Bank Note Company and has an ornate border around it with a vignette of the company's logo. This item has the printed signatures of the Company's President and Secretary and is over 38 years old. This is the first time we have had this for sale and we only have one.


Certificate Vignette

Infineon Raceway, formerly Sears Point Raceway, is a road course and drag strip in the hills of northern California, near Sonoma, north of San Francisco. The course is a complex series of twists and turns that go up and down the hills. It is host to one of the only two NASCAR races each year that is run on a non-oval track. It is also host to several other auto races and motorcycle races such as the American Federation of Motorcyclists series.

In 2002, Sears Point Raceway was renamed after a corporation, Infineon. However, as with many renamings of sports complexes, many people still call it by its original name.

The standard road course at Infineon Raceway is a 2.52 mile (4.05 km), 12 turn course, however the track was modified in 1998, adding the Chute, which bypasses turns 5 and 6, shortening course to 1.95 miles (3.14 km). The Chute is only used for NASCAR events such as the Dodge/Save Mart 350, and is criticised by many drivers, who prefer the full layout; most races, including the Grand American Road Racing Association's Grand Prix of Sonoma, use the full course, while American Motorcyclist Association and Indy Racing League events use a modified 2.22 mile (3.57 km), 12 turn course. This layout, opened in 2003, skips much of the Esses and run from Turn 10 to Turn 11 (the hairpin) for additional safety for motorcyclists, including runoff available in the motorcycle Turn 11 (the main Turn 11 has no runoff, and is a very slow turn, similar to the Mirabeau hairpin at Monaco). The raceway also has a quarter mile (400 m) drag strip used for NHRA drag racing events.

History from Wikipedia and OldCompany.com.

---

About Specimens

Specimen Certificates are actual certificates that have never been issued. They were usually kept by the printers in their permanent archives as their only example of a particular certificate. Sometimes you will see a hand stamp on the certificate that says "Do not remove from file".

Specimens were also used to show prospective clients different types of certificate designs that were available. Specimen certificates are usually much scarcer than issued certificates. In fact, many times they are the only way to get a certificate for a particular company because the issued certificates were redeemed and destroyed. In a few instances, Specimen certificates we made for a company but were never used because a different design was chosen by the company.

These certificates are normally stamped "Specimen" or they have small holes spelling the word specimen. Most of the time they don't have a serial number, or they have a serial number of 00000. This is an exciting sector of the hobby that grown in popularity over the past several years.