SCCA Area 4 Director's Newsletter March 2014

Information for Area 4 Members – March, 2014

Dear Area 4 Members,
Wow! What a whirlwind past 30 days. First, a visit to SCCA Enterprises in Denver, followed by a BOD Planning Committee meeting in Colorado Springs, CO. followed a few weeks later by five days at the SCCA National Convention in Charlotte, NC.: and then our GLD Spring Training Meeting in Findlay, Ohio. Here are the highlights.

Presidential Search

The Presidential Search Committee, on which I serve, has been meeting on a regular basis to review resumes and vet candidates. Final candidates were invited to address the BOD on Wednesday March 5th of Convention week. We hope to announce something very soon (look for the white tire smoke).

National Convention Awards

Great Lakes Division members racked up some impressive honors:

• Northwest Ohio Region - Solo Cup Winner, Small Region
• Todd Cholmondeley, Cincy Region - Club Racing, Martin Tanner Award
• Tom O’Gorman, Cincy Region - Solo, Driver of the Year
• Jerry Cabe, Cincy Region - Member of Excellence
• Bob Hubbard, W. Michigan Region - Hall of Fame
• Pete Hylton, Indianapolis Region - Hall of Fame

As the Member of Excellence award winner, Jerry Cabe also receives an all-expenses paid trip to any motorsports event in the world; pretty cool huh? And Pete Hylton looked great wearing an incredible Scottish kilt – as only an MG lover could. He is moving to England and then retiring in Scotland and would welcome visits. Congrats to our winners.

March BOD Meeting

The National Convention is always a very busy meeting time. We were active in the following activities:

• Reviewed Staff reports;
• Reviewed financials; we beat our planned loss due to excellent investing of reserve funds again
• Met with all Program boards; SEB, CRB, RXB and RRB
• Participated in various Town Hall meetings
• Met with Regional Executives and/or their assigns (in no particular order, other than proximity to my seat!):
  • Steve Alger, Saginaw Valley
  • Dayle Frame, Western Michigan
  • Jim Suhr and Jerry Stem, Western Ohio
  • Barry Baker and Larry Hall, Ohio Valley
  • Dave Dusterberg, Indianapolis
  • Jamey McDaniel and Dave Melton, Kentucky
  • Tony Brown, Cincinnati
  • Patrick Barber, Detroit

My apologies if you were in the room and I missed you; thanks for attending.

SCCA Website

There is an upgrade coming soon to the SCCA website. We all agree that information is sometimes difficult to find. Hopefully, these improvements will make the site much more user friendly. Watch for it and let us know your thoughts.

FIA Worker Accreditation

There is a movement afoot by the FIA to train and accredit F & C workers. Obviously, the SCCA is one of the largest and well-trained volunteer/worker corps in the world. But, F & C is organized differently in every area of the country. What impact this movement might have on us is unclear at the moment; just wanted you to be aware of it.

Membership

SCCA finished 2013 with 42,235 members; a 1,756 or 4.3% gain from 2012. The Solo program continues to lead the Club in attracting new members with 37%, Club Racing is next with 32%, Pro with 16%, RallyCross with 8% and Road Rally with 7%. From an age standpoint, 54% of the new members and 34% of all members are 35 years old or younger. So, you ask, how does this affect me? Well, just this small uptick in members returned about $50,000 more in dues to our Regions. That is right. More new members, especially participating members, add to the spiritual and financial health of our club. So, let’s get out and recruit! Topeka has all kinds of tools to help you. Need some help? – Just ask!

MSX Show

This year, our National Convention was held in conjunction with the Motorsports Expo Show (MSX). It is always dicey launching a new show. Unofficially, I heard 82 booths were sold. It didn’t take long to walk through the exhibits, but the speakers and seminars offered visitors a good sampling of race related topics. The feedback was good and we expect this show to expand greatly in the future. Thank you Mazda for sponsoring the snacks and beverages Friday night!

National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park

With everything else going on this month, I almost forgot to mention that Interim President Lisa Noble and I met Mitch Wright, Manager of the new NCM MSP, at the museum in Bowling Green, KY a few days before the sinkhole (it wasn’t our fault!), to discuss SCCA’s participation at the track. Good progress was made and we met Mitch again at the National Convention to clarify some details about possible partnerships. We are getting close to bringing these ideas to the BOD for action. The track will open in September 2014, and will include the road race circuit and 16 paved acres for Solo.

SCCA Enterprises

One of my assigned duties this year is to be the BOD Liaison to SCCA Enterprises. I visited the Denver shop on February 13th along with SCCA Chairman of the Board, John Walsh. I also met with the entire Enterprises Board at the Convention for about 3 hours. These are exciting times for Enterprises. The old 1.9 L Ford motor is reaching the end of its life and a new 1.6 L motor from Ford has been designated to replace it. The new motor is much lighter and has more horsepower. Initial testing has shown the new GEN3 motored cars to be much faster than current cars (like in 4 seconds a lap). The conversion process will begin this summer with all cars converted by 2018. Ramping up for this change, securing good parts vendors, while providing excellent technical support, is the challenge. The staff, led by Erik Skirmants and Mike Davies, along with the Enterprise Board, had done a fantastic job getting ready for this program. Let the good times roll.

Spring Training, the ides of March

Thanks to Dan Hodge and Val McCammon for putting on an excellent GLD Spring Training Event. We had over 90 attendees and it was especially sweet to have participation from our Solo and RallyCross programs along with our Club Racing folks. Thanks also go to Raleigh and Velma Boreen, ZB Lorenc, Ray Jason, Steve Kammeyer, Rhonda Knapp, Lauri Burkons, Larry Dent, Mark Sommer, Barry Baker, Mick Walker, Jerry Cabe, Dorothy Harrington and special guest Doug Gill. Again, apologies if I missed any of the presenters and organizers. We are already planning next year’s meeting at the same venue.

SCCA Foundation Raffle

The SCCA Foundation announced a new raffle this year – an all-expense paid VIP trip to the US Grand Prix in Austin, TX plus five usd grand ($5,000). Go here for more information: https://scca.raffleready.com/off-to-the-races-raffle

As always, should you need any assistance, please let me know.

Yours for a better SCCA,
Steve

Schedule

• Sun Apr 21, 2024
  Solo PE1
• Sun May 19, 2024
  Solo PE2
• Sat Jun 22, 2024
  Solo PE3 (Night Event!)

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