BoD Minutes – May 2024

NCR SCCA May 2024 Board Meeting Minutes

 Attendees: Anna Crissman, Chris Severt, Matt Decker, Kit Williams, John Bodnar, Megan Tyler, Sam Fouse,

Guests: Chuck Stanley, Judy Davis, Ben Tyler, Bruce Dover, Al Heatwole, Eric Danielsen, Libby and Frank Killian

  1. The meeting was called to order by NCR RE Anna Crissman at 7:00 pm.
  2. Motion to approve the minutes from the April Board meeting (Fouse/Bodnar). Approved

Financial Report

Treasurer Sam Fouse had sent a financial report to Kit Williams, Secretary.

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

Lee Hill and James Shanks were not in attendance but had posted their meeting reports to the NCR Board Google drive. Chris Severt said the Cape Fear Chapter had met the night before this meeting with 10 people, 3 of whom were new attendees. They spent the meeting talking to and about the new members and answered their questions about the SCCA. They also watched an in car video from VIR. Sam said he was at the Triangle chapter meeting and they had a good meeting with the regular attendees and a few guests. One of the guests said he was planning to attend our October event as a driver. Sam also said that one NCR Scholarship was handed out today, and there are several more going out in the next week or two. Bruce read Lee’s report from the West meeting. The West chapter met with 7 people at their normal location, and they discussed the recent events at VIR and the use of the Flagtronics system in SCCA racing.

Old Business

  1. SARRC/MARRS Debrief: Anna said she wanted to keep this discussion brief as the meeting had a lot of topics to cover. Sam said he felt the event went well despite the multiple issues. He said in the observers report they suggested we should look to rent the North or South course, which Sam said was pretty unrealistic. Sam said the turnout from Washington DC Region was noticeably lower than past SARRC/MARRS events. We felt this event was very close to one of their Majors races which definitely hurt attendance, and is something that needs to be corrected if at all possible. Anna felt VIR handled the power outage on Saturday better than they have previously, but it does seem like power outages are still a concern when a storm system passes through the area. John Bodnar had used his personal solar power station to help get timing up and running and he reported that it was now no longer functioning after he had it connected to VIR’s generator. Sam said if this cannot be corrected, John should let the region know and we would help with replacing his personal generator. Eric Danielsen asked if we had heard any feedback about trophies, and we had not gotten any comments back, though Sam pointed out that the trophies looked fantastic. Sam says it takes roughly 30 days to finalize everything from an event and he is still working through the finances from the Super Tour and the May event. He felt we may have broken even from the Super Tour and likely lost a little bit on the May event. He wanted to wait to come to a conclusion once everything was settled, but if this is the case, that is not good news for our finances going forward. Anna said she and Megan Tyler will schedule a more in-depth debrief in the coming weeks.
  2. Supps Revisions: Sam said the language in the Supps for trophies does not match what is in the GCR, which needs to be corrected before our next event. Sam also said we need to come to an agreement about refunds and update our language in the Supps. Sam said other regions around the country are not issuing refunds once a competitor turns a wheel on track. While we do not allow refunds once a competitor goes on track, we have been offering refunds for the second day of an event if a competitor pulls out of the event. Sam pointed out that we did this in May for drivers who broke on Saturday or decided to leave because of the weather. He pointed out that the event is both days with one sanction number, and once a competitor turns a wheel, offering a refund for one day hurts the region as we have already paid the fees for the entire event. Further discussion will need to be had about this before our next event. Sam said further language in the Supps should be clarified about what an “entry” is. He said some drivers had been able to work the registration system at the SARRC/MARRS in order to pay significantly less than anyone else. He had worked out a solution to this and said we should add this to the Supps. Sam said we were fortunate to be able to combine one race group with another one in order not to have a race group with an extremely low number of entries. He suggested we should find a way in the Supps to have a solution or a provision if a race group, particularly the “wings” group, struggles to get entries at an event so we can either combine or remove a race group as we did at the SARRC/MARRS.

New Business

  1. Entry Fees: Sam said he does regular research on entry fees across the country. He said he was putting together a report which he will send to the Board once it is complete. He said based on his research, our fees are fairly in line and our entry numbers are also fairly in line with other regions. Sam said he is seeing a lot of regional and Majors combined events. He said he felt running a Majors event seemed very attractive compared to a Super Tour, simply based on the Super Tour sanction fee of $80 per car. Anna said we need to seriously look at all options available to us, but was not sure that a Majors would have drawn as many people or been financially positive.
  2. June TT: Anna said registration is going well for this event. We are hoping to have enough people sign up to have an open wheel group during the event, but they needed a few more people to sign up in order to reach the minimum we set for them. We need a few more volunteers to sign up to work the event and a few more coaches as well. We expect this to be a good event and are very much looking forward to it.
  3. October Race at VIR: Anna said we have been looking at multiple different option about what event format we can run and how we can make a three day event work at VIR in October. The deposit to VIR is due by May 31st, so we need to make a decision about if we will have an event and what we will be doing at that event very soon. Sam has had several ideas, but he feels the most important thing we should have would be a Double SARRC race. This would be the first SARRC event of 2025 as the event takes place after the SARRC Championship event. He felt this would cover two days financially, but the third day would be something that needed to be thought about and planned for. Anna felt having Time Trial sessions and test day sessions was a good idea, but she also felt we would need to plan for renting all of the flaggers from VIR, so having a day where we only need to rent one flagger per station would be a good thing financially. Sam pointed out that the Friday rental would count as a weekend day and would be billed at the full rate. Anna said we needed to decide as soon as possible if we want to host this event at all. We are not sure financially how or if we can be successful at this time, and if we decide to go forward with this we need to form a committee to brainstorm and come up with a schedule of what we will offer and come up with a firm plan very soon. This event date, October 18th-20th, is one week after the SIC at Roebling Road, which she felt could be a good thing or a bad thing. We have not had an October regional event at VIR in many years due to the Runoffs, weather, and Covid. Anna looked and found that the MARRS championship event is the same weekend as this date. Eric wondered if we could skip this event and try again next year, but Sam and Anna said they have been told that if we do not take this event, VIR will not offer it to us next year. Anna asked if the Board had any objection to running the October event. Al said he has been trying to organize a Prod fest revival and would love to add this into our event if possible. Anna said we would be able to open registration and start advertising for this event even before we have our Supps and schedule finalized. Anna pointed out that going forward, we need to petition to move the SIC to a different weekend next year if at all possible. Anna proposed we form a committee to come up with a schedule and plan this event. Sam volunteered to join, and Anna asked Megan to join as well. Rob Wilmoth had said in an email that he would join, and Sam suggested we ask Lee Hill to be a part of it as well. Chris Severt said he would join this committee as well. Motion to hold an event in October at VIR on the weekend of the 18th-20th (Crissman/Severt). Motion passed unanimously.
  4. Rockingham Event Flagging: Anna said the Lucky Dog group approached us and asked us to flag an event for them at Rockingham. Ben and Megan Tyler and Anna went to the track with someone from Lucky Dog and made a few suggestions about how to run the event and what to recommend for safety for the workers. Ben said he would need 14 people to staff and flag the event. The proposal was to pay a VIP per day to each volunteer. We would need to provide flags, radios, coolers, canopies/covers for the workers on station, and other equipment. The track does not have portapotties at each station so a solution will have to be found for this. Lucky Dog is an endurance racing group and they would essentially have cars out there the entire time during the event. We need to work out a quote to give this group for our services, as they would be contracting us to flag the event. Their schedule has an 8 hour enduro on Saturday and a 7 hour enduro on Sunday. Sam said their entry fee on their website is $1500 per team. Anna felt that quoting Lucky Dog $150 per flagger per day seemed to be a fair estimate and matched what that group normally pays for one of their events. Ben said we would need to bring some fire bottles to cover us in the event that the track’s fire bottles prove inadequate. Ben said we will need to work out transportation and delivery of equipment for both this event and the NCCAR TT. Ben asked if we needed a safety steward on site for our volunteers, and Anna said it looked like we needed to have a steward available but not on site. Sam asked how the insurance would work for this event, and Anna said we would have our own sanction and insurance to cover our workers for this event. Al asked if we had enough people to cover this event, and Ben said he had started to ask a few people directly. Ben asked Chuck Stanley if he could attend and Judy Davis said she would not be available. Ben said they would be feeding our volunteers during the event, had invited us to their Friday night social, and were offering free camping. The date of the event would be June 29th and 30th. Anna said we have not committed to saying yes to running the event, and that the track would need to make the changes we are suggesting in order for our workers to be safe. Ben said at the moment, there are several stations at the track that are fully unprotected. Rockingham would need to build adequate safety barriers for these stations in order for us to even consider working this event. Al asked if us working the event at a non-certified track would cause any issues with our insurance covering our workers. Anna said she and Ben had already asked this question and because we are not holding the event and we are not sanctioning the racing, our insurance will cover our workers participating as flaggers. We proposed to send a list of the safety changes we would require to Lucky Dog and to Rockingham, and to agree to contract with them to flag the event if our safety changes are agreed to and met. Anna hoped that this would be a good entry for us to get our foot in the door at Rockingham for future events. Ben and Anna noted that the road course has been repaved, but the new paving has been put on top of the old paving and does not fully meet up with the oval section of the track, meaning there are several places where there is a very noticeable change in height between the track surface and the curbing or the ground. It was noted that there are still several areas of concern with the track in general in regards to us eventually hosting our own event at Rockingham. Anna said she felt we should go forward with this flagging venture for Lucky Dog. The Board agreed. Ben will look into whether our radios will work at Rockingham.

Motion to adjourn (Fouse/Williams). Approved 8:57.

 

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

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