The Capital City Classic is a flat and fast 10K held in Little Rock. The Capital City Classic 10K started as the Diet Pepsi 10000 meter run in 1980. Pepsi Co sponsored a national series of 10000 meter races at the time and sought out the Little Rock Roadrunners Club to administer the Little Rock edition.
Marty Liquori ran 30:05 on a downtown Little Rock course for the inaugural victory while Joyce Taylor was the top female finisher in 39:58. In 1981, the race was called the Pepsi Challenge 10000 and was won by Ric Rojas (30:11) and Francie Larreau (33:31). The Little Rock Roadrunners Club continued to administer the race under the Pepsi sponsorship for the next 13 years and the race attracted thousands of runners including elites such as Bill Rodgers and Anne Audain.
The Pepsi 10K was annually the largest road race in the state as well as Arkansas’s biggest participatory sporting event. After the 1992 running, Pepsi dropped its sponsorship and the LRRC recruited Golden Eagle Distributors to step in as the new presenting sponsor in time for the 1993 race. Since Golden Eagle primarily distributed products for Anheuser-Busch, the race switched names to the “Bud Run 10K”. This sponsorship ended after the 1997 running and though the club was able to line up new sponsorship from St Vincent’s Infirmary, a permanent name was needed.
After much debate and several official votes, the club decided on the name “Capital City Classic 10K.” The name has stuck and the race lived on.
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