Triangle Chapter Report – March 2017

The Triangle Chapter of the NC Region SCCA met on Wednesday March 1 at our new location, Casa Carbone in Raleigh. We had 13 members and no guests attend. Attendance was probably off some as some folks were preparing for the upcoming March race. We were glad to see that Rex Deffenbaugh and his wife Trish were in attendance as Rex was recovering from some recent surgery. While eating we watched some recent race videos along with my “best of the worst” medley of past wrecks and almost wrecks including the infamous “brake caliper to the windshield” incident and Blair Stitt’s demonstration of “how to turn a car into an accordion”.

Since there were no guests to introduce, we jumped right into the business portion of the meeting and a report on the last Board of Directors meeting. Highlights of that meeting included a report on the Region’s get together with Kerrigan Smith, VIR’s Chief Operating Officer, and other VIR staff. For the past several years we have hosted a joint pre-season meeting and found them very productive on both sides. Topics included: Kerrigan commenting on the many improvements they are making at the track for the coming year; we discussed plans for hosting the April Spring Sprints Majors race; and future events and dates. Yours truly, Sam Fouse, and others reported on the SEDiv Awards Banquet that took place down in St. Simon’s Island, GA earlier in the year. Some of those topics included SCCA entertaining the idea of one day driver schools, and struggles with SCCA’s Pro Racing subsidiary program. The four Regions that comprise the Carolina Cup Pro Series also got together at that meeting to discuss possible ways to improve both that series and NCR’s series, the Tarheel Cup Pro Series (TCPS). It was decide that the programs would stay separate through 2017 but would reassess the idea of combining next year. The results from our TCPS series were discussed and ways to improve the race series were covered. It was noted that the Region is paying substantial fees when folks use credit cards to pay race entry fees so the Region is hoping to spread the word that we would prefer that folks use checks to pay in order to save the Region money and allow us to keep entry fees as low as possible. It was noted that James Shanks and others are taking extraordinary steps to preserve the Region’s long history and the Board was in full support. Check the Region’s web site to learn more about this program and what you might be able to do to help out if you have historic Region documents hiding in your basement or attic. The Board discussed what charities we would name for each race next year and noted that a swap and sell section on our web page might be useful for Region members. We then discussed past events and upcoming events as well as what transpired at the last Comp Board meeting.

We ended the business portion of the meeting with presentation of some awards for folks that could not make it to the SEDiv awards banquet. Award winners included Steve Rose for first place in SEDiv in IT7R and Chuck Hines for second place SEDiv in ITA. It was a great opportunity to recognize these two for their efforts.

It was noted that we are looking for speakers for this year’s Triangle Chapter meetings so if you can think of someone that might have something interesting to speak about please let me know.

Having no further business, the meeting adjourned.

Respectfully submitted, Mark Senior – Triangle Chapter Coordinator

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