Triangle Chapter Report – June 2012

RALEIGH, NC – (NCRSCCA) – The June meeting of the Triangle Chapter was held at El Rodeo in Raleigh on Wednesday June 6th,  the 68th anniversary of  the Normandy invasion of WWII.   We didn’t celebrate that so much, though some of us quietly observed it, as we did the first Regional race by rookie Blair Deffenbaugh.  Mark Senior had Blair’s in-car video on his computer and he hooked that up to the big screen in the El Rodeo upstairs lounge.  Blair didn’t do badly for his first time out – he finished where he started, didn’t mess up, and didn’t hit anybody – though we did see his IT-7 get passed by a couple of Miatas, most notably Mark Senior’s!  Good job, Blair!

In the short business section we discussed the pending consolidation of the Touring, Showroom Stock, and B-Spec classes into Touring 1 – 4 for 2013, and the fact that all touring classes are allowed to flash the ECU and reprogram it for racing.  That’s a far cry from the Showroom Stock of my day, when you could be disqualified for not using the factory air filter, but times change.  It was observed that allowing competitors to flash the ECU is just recognition of the fact that we don’t have a way to effectively police whether they do or not, so we might as well make legal what they will do anyway. The National Board of Directors has since voted to accept the T1-T4 rules for next year, as well as the consolidation of CSR and DSR into a single class called “Sports Racing 1 (SR1)”.  We are still waiting to hear whether they will rename S-2000 and SRF to SR2 and SR3, respectively, but they voted down combining FM and FE into a single class.   

In other news, we sent a letter from our Club attorney Jerry Pell to Central Carolinas Region asking for a final accounting and split of the profits from last September’s race in Charlotte.  They have been rather tardy in this regard and they have since contacted RE Rex Deffenbaugh to assure him this will be forthcoming.  Also at the last Board Meeting, West Chapter Coordinator John Lindquist proposed an amendment to our Operations manual concerning conflicts of interest, which basically specifies that any Board member who stands to gain or lose financially from a decision by the Region BoD announce that and recuse himself or herself from voting on that issue.  This proposal was accepted and is being incorporated into a new version of the Ops manual, which will soon be published on the Region web site. Finally, it was announced that the proposed combined event with Tarheel Sports Car Club at VIR in September has been shelved for this year.  It’s not that we don’t want to do it; it’s just that the logistics have proved too difficult to arrange.  We could not drum up enough support for a shortened race package (ECR or Tar Heel Cup) that would conveniently fit into their schedule, particularly because they only require one worker per station while we require two. But, the idea has merit and is still under consideration for next year.

Due to the July 4th holiday, which falls on the first Wednesday in July, the Triangle Chapter will meet again on Wednesday, July 11, one week later than usual, but at our usual spot, El Rodeo restaurant in the Townridge Shopping Center (Pleasant Valley and Glenwood Avenue) in Raleigh.  Why not join us then for some good food, camaraderie, and bench racing?  I’ll see you there or at the races!

James Shanks
Triangle Chapter Coordinator

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