During the 2014 racing season, as a result of unplanned expenditures during the 2013 season, we managed to lose some money, so we were interested in recovering as much as possible during the 2014 season, and we did recover most of it. Since we are a nonprofit, it’s not easy to accomplish this. Many things conspired to allow us to cover some of that money, and some of what we learned will help to control cost of operations in the future as they normally increase. The March race was canceled because of track paving operations, and since we traditionally lose money on that race, that was in our favor. There were many other occurrences that allowed us to save money and some follow.
We saved money by coming up with more effective and cheaper methods to advertise. We saved large amounts of cash not advertising as much in national magazines. We planned to run only one ad, but that didn’t work out when Grassroots Motorsports ran a second ad we didn’t want, but we have received an ad for the 2015 season at no charge as a result, thus breaking even on that cost.
We have had a need for more Race Chairs for years, and 3 members, Mark Senior, Eric Danielsen and Justin Deffenbaugh, stepped up and chaired their first races as a team. The result is that we now have more people to choose from for Race Chairs, relieving Sara, who has often worn the hat of Race Chair and Chief Steward on the same weekend in the past.
We had one member, Bruce Dover, who stepped up and established a system that allows us to execute mass emails. He had help from Board member, Sam Fouse, who helped develop an address list that covers a large portion of the country, and you have seen the results of that labor.
We changed the way we conduct our hospitality to save money there. Some of those changes may seem severe, but that cost was growing to be our second largest race operation expense with no limit in sight. We had some missteps during the year, but things were smoothing out by the end of the season and next year will be even better.
In 2015, we are looking into changing the way we vote in Board of Directors elections and would like to use the internet to accomplish this.
We will expand our event with Tarheel Sports Car Club. We had our first event with them in 2014, and some portions were successful and some were not. We will improve that event for 2015 and have a joint meeting planned with VIR management to help with that goal.
The biggest challenge the Club has to deal with is that Ginny Condrey is leaving. She is the only paid employee of the club, and as a result, many responsibilities found their way to her. We will split her responsibilities amongst a number of people, and if you know anyone who might be able to help with this, please let a Board member know. She has been one of the most valuable assets the Club has, and knows more about day to day operations than anyone else, so it will be important to choose people to shadow her through the year to learn as much of what she knows as we can. We want to thank Ginny for her many years of service and let her know she will be missed.
And lastly, we will start 2016 with a new RE. We need someone in this position who can move the Club forward with innovation and insight. I will never be away from Club operations and will stay involved in many capacities, but it’s time for a change.
Rex Deffenbaugh, Regional Executive