BoD Minutes – February 2023

NCR Board Meeting

February 15, 2023

Attendees: Kit Williams, Bruce Dover, Anna Crissman, Lee Hill, John Bodnar, Al Heatwole, Chris Severt, Sam Fouse, James Shanks, Megan Tyler late, Stephen Miller late

Guests: Rex Loden, Chris Schimmel, Frank Killian, Mark Senior, Chuck Stanley late, Ben Tyler late, Elizabeth Severt late, Rob Wilmoth late

  1. The meeting was called to order by Anna Crissman at 7:04 pm.
  2. Motion to approve the minutes from the previous meeting (Hill /Fouse), Approved.

Financial Report

Sam Fouse read out a financial report he had prepared, which he then sent to Kit Williams for the minutes.

As the details of our finances are confidential, NCR members who wish more information should contact either the Office Manager or any member of the Board of Directors. They are also invited to attend a Chapter Meeting, where such matters are discussed in detail.

Chapter Reports

Chris Severt said the Cape Fear Chapter had met in person for the first time in a very long time at Ogden Tap Room in Wilmington. They had roughly 14 people and will need a larger room if they have more people attend. They discussed the upcoming schedule and had a very good meeting. James Shanks had posted a meeting report to the Google Drive for the Triangle Chapter meeting. They had 14 people attend and had another automotive trivia contest which Sam Fouse won. They also went back over the awards banquet and discussed various other issues including the VIR flagging announcement for 2024. James announced that he would be leaving the chapter coordinator position at the end of the year. Lee Hill said the West Chapter had met on the first Tuesday due to Valentine’s Day being on their actual meeting day. They had 9 people including one new member who was interested in flagging. They discussed the preseason VIR meeting and various other items.

Old Business

  1. Rockingham Update: Anna changed the agenda schedule and asked Al Heatwole to give us his update on Rockingham. Al said he wished he did have an update to give us, but unfortunately he has reached out to the track multiple times in the past two months and has received no response from the track. He said their posted schedule has very few events listed on it, and he is really not sure what is going on at the track and why they have not responded to him. Al said that Rob Wilmoth has indicated that he knows someone at the track so he may be able to get ahold of someone in order to get things moving between NCR and Rockingham. When Rob Wilmoth joined the meeting, he said he had some information regarding Rockingham. He said a stock car group was invited to come and drive the track during the track’s open house as an HPDE event. He said he has been involved with the planning for making this happen and there have been multiple red flags regarding the track management. He said they were told by the track that they planned to have 5,000 spectators with no crowd control or security and an open paddock which is obviously a huge concern. Rob said he had reached out to Rockingham on behalf of Audi Club and had also not received any response yet. As far as we are aware, none of our safety concerns that we addressed with the track in 2022 have been corrected and the track would still need to be made safe and certified by the SCCA before we could have an event at Rockingham. Rob said he had been texting Justin, the track manager at Rockingham, and felt he could get in touch with them on our behalf. Al and Anna both asked him to please do so. Stephen noted that we could get things moving and an inspection done to have a time trial and a track event, but without a full inspection and engineering drawings, we would not be able to get the track certified for road racing as SCCA and our insurance would require the track to be FIA certified. Ben Tyler said when they went to Rockingham for their first meeting, the track told him they had no engineering drawings of any kind for the track.
  2. April Super Tour Update: Anna said the supplemental rules and COI are set and ready to go. Sam Fouse has been planning and working on the load in process but has run into several issues. Sam said he has been trying to recruit people to help with load in and most of the people who have responded are racers or people who have helped us in the past. VIR has told Sam they want to charge those people who are coming in to help to camp and for electrical hookup for Tuesday and Wednesday. They want to charge $70 to camp and $40 for electrical. Sam said he remembers Kerrigan telling us at our meeting that the $70 rate did not apply to our volunteers. Anna said she remembers the same thing, as did Mark Senior. Sam said he plans to go back to Bryan at VIR and ask if people attending the test day are going to be charged $110 for one night of camping and electrical hookup, as this seems ridiculous. Anna says they were specifically promised 10 volunteer camping passes for each event, and believes this normally covers our volunteers who need to camp. Sam said he had confirmed that the $70 was per vehicle, not per person. Sam has requested information from SCCA National about what prep shops will attend and how much space they should get. Anna said driver registration is set to open in 8 days but they could open the registration sooner if some of the details get worked out before then. Anna said we need to finalize our Exhibit B for VIR, which they could potentially finish up with tonight after the meeting. Later in the meeting, Anna said VIR is making us tell them beforehand how much overtime track rent we want and then paying for that amount no matter what, so the schedule will need to build in some stops and breaks in the schedule to maximize our track time. She expected us to be able to get through the event without any issues as long as we can keep to our schedule.

New Business

  1. Solo Chair Update: Anna asked Rex Loden to update the Board on recent events with the NCR Solo program. Shane Irving has stepped down as the Solo Chair and has handed those duties off to Rex Loden, who was already involved with the Solo program. Rex said they had received and signed the contract from MCAS Cherry Point and have confirmed their schedule for this year on the base. He also said they have been talking to Sam True at NCCAR and they have confirmed their dates with him, and Sam told Rex he would send them their contract soon. Their schedule currently has roughly 12 events, which would give them room to have at least one or two novice schools this year. The base has also allowed us to move the 30 day registration cut off to 15 days, which is a huge improvement and a step in the right direction for helping make our events easier to advertise. Stephen and Sam asked Rex to send them the NCCAR contracts when he had them and Rex said he would do that. Rob asked Rex to send him some information regarding the Solo program so he could promote it with Audi Club.
  2. May Event Planning: Anna said we have started planning the May road race at VIR, which will be a return to the SARRC/MARRS challenge. Anna said they were looking into the schedule and Sam Fouse had said he wanted to have an Enduro during our event. Anna said they would work out the details but expected this to be a much different event than the Super Tour in April. There was no real concrete information to go on or decisions to make at this time but they would be starting soon. Sam said if we market our event correctly, we should hopefully be able to attract drivers who would be looking to qualify for the Runoffs with the 2 + 2 option. This year the event is not on Mother Day’s weekend, which should also be a boost to our numbers for the event. Anna said MARRS had asked us to have specific grouping for classes they bring, such as SSM, and she said most of what they have asked us to do we will not be able to accomodate. The placing in the schedule of the enduro also has a large effect on which groups can be grouped together and when they run in the day. Al wanted to know if ProdFest was interested in happening in May, and Anna said she had reached out but had not gotten a firm response back. Al said he would reach out to several Prod drivers and see if they could put something together.

Sam requested that anyone on the Board who had received payment for their SEDiv expenses needed to submit back to him their expense report for their funds.

Motion to close the meeting (Bodnar/Hill). Passed at 8:12pm.

Please note that all NCR members are welcome to attend NCR Board of Directors meetings.

If any member should have a question about the Region or its activities, please contact the Office Manager or any member of the Board.

 

Submitted by Secretary Kit Williams

MORE REPORTS

All
  • All
  • BoD Minutes
  • Cape Fear Chapter Report
  • Triangle Chapter Report
  • West Chapter Report