BoD Minutes – July 18, 2018

Minutes of NCR-SCCA Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

July 18, 2018

Present:  Anna Crissman, Justin Deffenbaugh, Rex Deffenbaugh, Bruce Dover, Jennifer Dover, Sam Fouse, Buddy Matthews, Joedy Pennington, James Shanks, and via conference call, Heather Clark, Eric Danielsen, Blair Deffenbaugh, Thomas Guest, Stephen Miller, Morgan Mehler, Ben Tyler, and Kit Williams. Heather Powers and Mark Senior did not attend.

  1. The NCR BoD meeting was called to order by RE Sam Fouse at 7:28 PM, on Wednesday, July 18th 2018, at Piper’s Deli, 3219 Old Chapel Hill Road, Durham, NC,
  1. Eric Danielsen, Thomas Guest, Stephen Miller, and Ben Tyler attended as guests via telephone. Justin Deffenbaugh, Jennifer Dover, and Joedy Pennington attended as guests in person.
  1. Motion to approve the June minutes, as posted on the Google drive (Crissman / R. Deffenbaugh). Passed.

Order of items below reflects the order of discussion; not necessarily as they appeared on the published agenda.

Financial Report.

 Due to the absence of Treasurer Heather Powers, there was no financial report for this meeting.

Old Business:

  1. Bylaws Committee Update. James reported that the Bylaws Committee had put their suggested revisions out on the Google drive for the Board members to look at a few days earlier, but that today he had received a call from Jerry Pell, the Region’s defacto legal counsel; and Jerry had a number of suggestions and clarifications that he wanted to make. As a result, further discussion was tabled until next month.
  1. Speed Suite Work Days. Sam indicated that he would circulate the plans he was drawing up for the remodeling to the Board soon. He also planned to get a building permit filed in South Boston and contact the plumbing firm and the electrical contractor who had built the structure initially to do the necessary modifications of those systems for us. But none of this needed to be done before our workday. After discussion, the weekend of August 11 – 12, 2018, seemed the best choice but no decision was reached. Sam will pick a date as his schedule permits.
  1. 2019 Schedule and Runoffs Update. Sam reported that he and Mark Senior had a very productive meeting with Kerrigan Smith of VIR concerning us obtaining a date for a test day weekend in advance of the Runoffs next year. Kerrigan is looking into the possibility of swapping some dates around with other renters so that we might have the weekend of August 3 – 4, 2019. This is not definite yet, and may not happen at all, but Sam said he had been looking at the rates charged by other tracks which had such days in advance of the Runoffs, and he thought we could make it work, and even offer a discount to NCR members. In a related matter, after a question by Joedy Pennington, Sam said that his contact at Mazda, Steve Strickland, had told him that the used pace car from Laguna Seca was considered by Mazda to be too badly deteriorated to give to us, but that they were still working on getting us a Mazda pace car to use.

New Business:

  1. Goblins Go Supps. Anna presented the final version of the Supplemental Regulations for October’s Goblins Go. It features a full 90-minute ECR on Saturday but only a 45-minute one on Sunday to facilitate an early end of the day and still allow for Sunday morning practice sessions. These will be limited sessions, one for open wheel and one for closed wheel, of 15 minutes apiece.  APC and TCPS groups will run concurrently with the ECR both days.  Another feature is that there are two open wheel race groupings, one for smaller bore cars, and one for the faster Wings and Things, in the hope of attracting more cars of these types. She noted that the two groups can always be combined if not enough of them show. Anna further noted that we are getting closer to the goal of having “boiler plate” Supps, which can be used for different events with minimal changes and a new event-specific schedule.
  1. SEDIV Mid-Year meeting. The SEDIV Mid-Year meeting was held in Atlanta on July 14th, and while it was expected Sam would not attend in person, in fact he was unable to attend at all because, unlike last year, no phone-in option was offered. He was in communication via text with Melanie Murray, the RE of South Carolina Region, who had his proxy for voting, however. She indicated that the SEDIV financial report, which was supposed to be discussed at that meeting, was not presented because it was still not finished. And apparently no votes were taken. All this underscored Sam’s contention that this meeting is a waste of time and that it should be replaced by a simple conference call. He said he received a follow-up e-mail from Morriss Pendleton, Executive Steward, that others share his view and that this may happen “in a few years.”
  1. Time Trial at VIR. Justin Deffenbaugh kicked off a discussion about having a Time Trial event at VIR. An informal committee had been formed to look into this possibility, Justin said, after the success of the “Memorial Monster” event at Carolina Motorsports Park (CMP) over Memorial Day weekend. Sam interjected that he had just received a check for $500 for our participation in that event. Justin noted that while stand-alone events at VIR had failed due to the high cost of the facility, there remained the possibility of having one on the Patriot course, during one of our race weekends, concurrent but largely separated from it. The 1.1-mile Patriot course is only a little shorter than CMP, and it only needs 4 corner workers to staff it for this kind of an event. Justin wanted Board approval to recognize the committee, which consisted of Anna Crissman, Blair Deffenbaugh, Thomas Guest, Stephen Miller, and Kit Williams and himself, and allow them to go forward with trying to make this happen for next March, with May as a backup date. He agreed to chair the committee. The Board agreed by consensus to his proposal. Kit Williams added that the Solo group would be happy to come and set up their optical timing gear for the “track cross” portion of such an event, as well as take part in other ways. Sam raised the possibility of adding a CRE (“Club Racing Experience”) group to such an event, so that we might give some folks credit toward achieving a competition license, but this was informally rejected as too ambitious for a first event. Ben asked whether they might offer a free one day’s participation as an incentive for corner workers, but while it was agreed that this was possible, it also might be too complex to implement for the first go-around. Everything was on the table, Justin indicated, as the committee moves forward.
  1. Dues for Past National Board Members. It had recently come to light that the National Office grants lifetime membership to past members of the SCCA Board of Directors as a reward for their service, and that as a consequence they no longer have to pay national dues. But this creates a problem since the National Office cannot order members regions to forego their dues, so the member is left in the odd situation of having to make separate arrangements to pay region dues to their Region of Record, unless that Region agrees to forego them. We were unaware that former RE and past Area Director Kaye Fairer was in this position and the Board moved to remedy this. Motion to make Kaye Fairer a lifetime member of North Carolina Region so that she no longer has to pay Region dues (Shanks / R. Deffenbaugh). Passed.
  1. Lifetime Membership for Hayden Beatty. It had recently come to light that Hayden Beatty, one of the founding members of the North Carolina Region in 1955, and our Chief Paddock Marshal for the last decade or so, had let his membership lapse when he retired as Paddock Marshal. Sam said that for all his service, we should ask the National Office to grant Hayden a Lifetime Membership in the Club, and if they would not, then we should pay for it. Motion to obtain Lifetime Membership for Hayden Beatty (R. Deffenbaugh / Crissman). Passed.
  1. Upgrading Volunteer Licenses Before the Runoffs. Sam wants to see that all those deserving of a license or a license upgrade get one, so that they might be good candidates to staff positions at the track they know best for next year’s Runoffs. He charged all chiefs of specialty to make recommendations for upgrades before the Goblins Go, particularly in hard to staff areas such as Tech, Pit and Grid, and T&S. He had asked Ed Wentz for a list of pace car drivers and communicators and said he would be contacting the National Office to get them the requisite credentials. He also said he would be looking into getting Race Admin licenses for all the Race Chairs, Assistant Race Chairs, and the folks working Hospitality and Driver Info.
  1. Transponder Tester in Tech. Buddy requested that the Region pay to install a timing loop near the tech shed at VIR and purchase the requisite equipment to make it functional as a transponder tester. He envisions a system where the driver rolls his car over the loop and a light flashes green to indicate that the transponder is working. Anna said she has everything that is needed, save for a decoder, which they might borrow or perhaps find for sale used. New ones are very expensive, costing several thousands of dollars, she noted. She and Buddy disagreed over whether the loop should be permanently buried under the asphalt or whether having it attached to a sheet a plywood and deployed temporarily at every event would be sufficient, with Buddy strongly favoring a permanent installation. The issue was tabled until the next meeting.

Chapter and Committee Reports: As of this writing there were no Chapter or Committee reports for July 2018 posted on the Google drive.

Motion to adjourn at 8:53 PM (Shanks / Crissman). Passed.

Submitted by Secretary, James Shanks

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