Triangle Chapter Report – March 2012

RALEIGH, NC – (NCRSCCA) – The March meeting of the Triangle Chapter was surprisingly well-attended, given that we had our first racing event just three days away.  Steve Keadle, our Treasurer and Chief Steward for the “March Memories” event told us that there were 273 cars pre-registered and that things seemed to be moving along nicely.  That energized the crowd, as did the discussion of the inaugural Tarheel Cup Pro Series races which were to be a part of it.  Series Pointskeeper, Steve Rose, was on-hand and he assured us that they were ready to go.

The standing-room only crowd included some new faces as well as “the usual suspects”.  Several of the new folks from the last meeting, Chris Daley, Vanessa Perry, and Kenneth Butron, were there and planning to attend the event.  Shu Fai Fung, who races IT-7, brought his friends Sharon and Hon.  Hon lives up in Danville and Shu stays with him on race weekends.  It’s good to have friends!  Marcel Kinard came out to meet the group for the first time.  And Doug Piner and his wife Kim made a surprise appearance with their young daughters, Carly and Olivia.  The girls always brighten the atmosphere!

We were entertained before dinner by video from Mark Senior of his ski trip (!) with his family.  Did you have a toboggan cap camera, Mark?  It was a nice change of pace, though Mark followed up after dinner with more “Chump Car” footage from VIR last year. That may have been inspired by Steve Rose’s report of being part of the “24 hours of Lemons” race at CMP last month. Steve reported some really crazy stuff, like a car with huge tree coming out of the sun roof complete with a likeness of cartoon character Charlie Brown with his kite stuck in it, and folks having to serve penalties that included having to write sentences on their cars as if they were a blackboard and this were an after-school detention.  Wow!  Those events may not be all that safe, but they are certainly memorable!

RE Rex Deffenbaugh was on hand to give us his impressions of the SCCA National Convention in Las Vegas that had just concluded the week before.  Rex said that the Club policy makers realize that more needs to be done to get new drivers on track sooner, and that proposals are being made to institute a mentoring program which might substitute for a driver’s school for drivers who have racing experience with other clubs.  He also said that some experiments are being tried across the country to combine Regional and National racing into a single event, sometimes into the same race group.  This prompted long-time member and veteran driver Sam Fouse to observe that it is time for the whole Regional /National split to go away.  Others agreed; and Rex said that in the Midwest they may being trying to do just that by instituting a “Masters” program in place of “National” races at some events.  Big changes may be coming in our event formats in the near future.  We’ll keep you posted.  And if anyone has any ideas they’d like to share, please contact a Region board member!

And finally, speaking of new event formats, the Region is trying to partner with Tarheel Sports Car Club for their three-day event at VIR in September, the 7^th – 9^th.  We’d like to put on an event within their event, perhaps holding a restricted regional race on the third day of their PDX.  The idea is that each club would play to their strengths and we would both be winners financially while having a great time.  Mark Senior is spearheading this project, so please let him know what you think.  We need to set this up as soon as possible.

A good way to stay abreast of all these developments is to attend the Triangle Chapter meetings.  Why not join us for the next one, Wednesday, April 4?  I’ll see you there…or at the races!

James Shanks
Triangle Chapter Coordinator