2010 June

by Andy Bell

It is now mid June and the season seems like it is flying by. We have had 4 points events so far and a driver’s school all with good results. We have had to battle the weather a few times and run for cover when the lightning started, but all in all the events have been successful. Our new young leaders are stepping up which has given me some relief and allowed me to start stepping back from running the program which is a great relief for me as my workload during the week has increased and I am also trying to coach the boys in their off track sports activities as well. It has even allowed our little clan to leave early from some of our events so I can help coach Drew’s little league team.

Some updates from the last article

1. The rotating chief plan does work, but does take some coordination. We have not had as many people step up to try a position for a day as we had hoped, but every little bit helps. We have asked several people to step into roles for the day and that has been successful, but we need to keep bringing in more people to the leadership roles. Our biggest issue is to establish 4 key positions well ahead of the event to allow us to get our sanctions. These are Safety Steward, Chairman, youth steward, and Waiver chief. If you are interested in helping with any of these positions in the second half of the year, please let me know.

2. The discount program instead of trophies seems to be well accepted. We have still had some glitches (usually getting the new discount codes posted in time), but I think this program will work and get smoother as we get the system ironed out.

3. The new AXware program seems to be working well. Jenny and Zsolt are now able to post the results right after the event. We also have purchased the membership module which should allow us to track year end points and get us back to the operational capability we had with TS2000. I also want to thank Will McGowan for the work he did in rewiring various parts of the system that were wearing out. He has run new cables, power supplies and connectors on many of the timing and scoring components.

On the Cooper Stadium front the progress is still slow, but at least there is progress. Jon Beerman and Bruno Tabbachi are still spearheading the effort on our end and they can use all the help they can get to secure that site for the future. Please continue to support their work and attend those community meetings so we have counterpoints to the opposition. To support this effort we are also strictly enforcing our sound supplemental rule and have been recording the results for the last few races so we have a baseline of what our actual readings are.

The Governor’s cup will be a tough event this year. We finally got confirmation from OSU that the lot will NOT be available on Saturday the 10th of July, so we will only have a one day event this year since we cannot seem to get another 2 day weekend lined up.

On the upside Jim Layton at National Trial wants us to help do an autocross for a September NHRA Unleashed event. I will need volunteers for that so please contact me for details. This will be a combined drag race/autocross/car show and parts of it will be televised by the same people who produce Pinks for Speed.

By the time you read this, we will be putting on our Street Survival event again. I should be able to follow up on an article about that for the next issue.

So far our entries for 2010 are down some compared to past years. Weather and the schedule have contributed, but it is something I am watching closely. If there are ways we can improve the program please feel free to contact myself, the BoD or any of our chiefs. We do this for fun, so we want to be sure our racers are enjoying themselves at our events and continue to come race with us.

2010, June