ROAD &TACH. A Great Time Had By All. The 2009 Awards Banquet

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "ROAD &TACH. A Great Time Had By All. The 2009 Awards Banquet"

Ursula Beasley
5 years ago
Views:

Candidates for Board of Directors - page 3 Award Banquet Photos -

1 November 2008 ROAD &TACH Newsletter of the Reno Region, Sports Car Club of America A Great Time Had By All The 2009 Awards Banquet Candidates for Board of Directors - page 3 Award Banquet Photos - page Solo PAX Factors - page 5 Track Program Wrap Up - page 6

November 2008 2 Reno Region Officers Regional Executive Jim Gandy 1541 Stephanie Way, Minden NV 89423 775-267-1183 jrgandy@renoscca.org Asst.

2 November Reno Region Officers Regional Executive Jim Gandy 1541 Stephanie Way, Minden NV jrgandy@renoscca.org Asst. Regional Executive Randy Jones 1615 Shadow Lane, Sparks, NV Randy.jones@meadowbrook.com Secretary Debbie Kerswill 2295 Titleist Ct, Reno NV ) dknv99@yahoo.com Treasurer Doug Driver 419 West Plumb Lane Reno, NV ddriver@renoscca.org Track Events Director Dave Deborde 2910 Santa Inez, Minden, NV ddeborde@renoscca.org Solo & Rally Director Matt Roy 4793 Amber Hill Court, Reno, NV mroy@renoscca.org Membership Chair Carol Deborde 2910 Santa Inez, Minden, NV cdeborde@renoscca.org Director at Large Don Smith 316 California Ave #546, Reno, NV dsmith@renoscca.org Director at Large Dean Benz Dean@Benzfamily.US Director at Large Scott Perry 1930 Summer Star Rd, Reno, NV sperry@renoscca.org Newsletter Editor newsletter@renoscca.org Opinions expressed in this newsletter are solely those of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the Reno Region of the SCCA PAX Revisions: Ya Gotta Go Faster. Don t know if it comes from the Emerald City or not, but the Great and Powerful Wizard of PAX has issued the revised PAX factors for Just a brief review: PAX is an unofficial system that allows drivers in different classes to compare their Solo results with each other. It s been around for, oh, a couple decades at least. Each Solo class has a PAX factor. Multiply your run time by your factor and you get your PAX time, or more properly, your PAX score. PAX is a hot topic in Reno Region, ever since the Board of Directors opted to no longer subjectively pick Solo Drivers of the Year. All that s left for deciding who s the Big Dog in Reno Solo is PAX. Winning PAX at an event, and winning the year-end PAX championship, is a Big Thing around here. Enough background. The new PAX numbers are out (they re elsewhere in this newsletter), and it s fair to say things are getting tougher for most of us. Whether you think nationally (A Modified class is the PAX standard) or locally (our PAX frontrunner is the Yeo/Miller B Street Prepared Corvette), the vast majority of classes will have to find more speed in 2009 just to tread water in the rankings. Want some specifics? Okay, let s assume a course that the fast guys are running a course in around 40 seconds. At Reno Region Solo events next year, our F125 shifter kart drivers will have to go more than 0.3 seconds faster, just to maintain their current PAX deficit to the BSP Corvette. Ditto for Street Mod 2, the hairy-chested Corvettes. And our bad-boy Subarus running in Street Mod class will have to scrape up an extra 0.25 seconds to keep from falling farther behind. Hardest hit is F Stock, where Dave Jansen made a run at PAX in 2007 in a Camaro. Any driver venturing into F Stock in 2009 will be greeted with a 0.44-second deficit compared to Looking for a class where PAX gets easier in 09? There are only six, and just one of those picked up anything significant. G Prepared (think Kevin Sheridan s Bugeye Sprite on racing slicks) gets a 0.2-second break. But since altitude effects condemn those kinds of cars to the bottom of the Reno PAX heap anyway, the net result of the 2009 PAX changes for Reno Region is to make real PAX competition here even more unlikely. Catch the Runoffs on TV This Winter If you don t mind programming your TiVo or Regional Accent Words from Reno s Regional Executive VCR, there s a whole lot of SCCA racing on the tube this time of year. Every one of the 25 national championship races from the 2008 Runoffs at Topeka is being shown on Speed Channel, though nowhere near prime time. Wednesday mornings at 9 and 10, two races per week are broadcast. Several have already aired, but as of this writing, this is the remaining schedule: Nov. 26, Spec Racer Ford and Formula Vee Dec. 3, Spec Miata and Formula Continental Dec. 10, GT2 and GT3 Dec. 17, D Sports Racer/ Showroom Stock C Dec. 31, Formula 500 and Touring 1 Jan. 7, H Production and Formula Ford Jan. 14, GT Lite and Sports 2000 Jan. 21, Showroom Stock B and C Sports Racer Jan. 28, American Sedan and Formula Enterprises Feb. 4, F Production and Formula Atlantic Feb. 11 at 9 a.m., GT1 That final race, GT1, should be a treat I understand the drivers did a special missing man formation on the pace lap to honor the late Paul Newman. I ll also be keeping a recording of the Spec Miata race a driver I ve crewed for (and who also competed in a Reno Region Solo event a few years ago), Aaron McSpadden, started 13 th, finished sixth with a last-turn pass, and ended up getting the third-place trophy when three cars flunked their post-race inspections. Convention Update(s) by Jim Gandy Within the SCCA, conventions are something of a conundrum. There s so much communicatin goin on already through the internet, and the club s planning and rules-making processes are such year-round things, that a person could be excused for wondering why we still have conventions. In fact, that kind of thinking has just killed the 2009 NORPAC Division get-together s convention in Reno spent two days trying to answer the question, Why? Oregon Region first volunteered to host a stripped-down gathering in 2009, but they later backed out. Then Northwest Region took up the banner and presented a plan for a full, Reno-style convention to be held in Tacoma. Objections from Oregon and San Francisco Regions nixed that idea, so there will be no NORPAC Division Convention in 2009 and there s no plan for one in the future. Meanwhile, the national SCCA Convention soldiers on. After three years in San Antonio, (Continued on page 3)

3 (Continued from page 2) the 2009 affair will be held right here in Nevada, at the South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on Feb If you re a committed sports car enthusiast, it could make a good winter break. The price is reasonable - $260 covers all the meetings and seminars, and you get lunches and dinners at the various award presentation banquets. South Point is a couple of miles south of the Strip, just off I-15. Registration info is at scca.org. The official SCCA room rate is a bit steep ($90 Thursday, $140 Friday or Saturday), and I noted you can do $20 better on Vegas.com. If you ve got a car, there are much lower rates to be had in Vegas; several of the big downtown hotels on the Fremont Street Experience are under $50. With the bad economy, the ongoing search for a new SCCA President, and a significant loss of steam in the Club Racing program, it should be an interesting convention. I have a feeling that what happens in Vegas won t stay in Vegas some far-reaching changes are possible. Reno Region Needs You Reno Region s annual elections are coming up on Dec. 3 rd, and to be candid, we re having a tough time filling out our slate of candidates. Several of our key players are stepping down, and the economy has affected quite a few of our members. Some folks are reluctant to make commitments, when keeping or finding a job is such a personal priority. I can assure you, the show will go on. Reno Region will again have a full schedule of activities in Maybe the number of entries at our events will fall somewhat, but for those who do come out, you ll still experience the same high-quality events you ve gotten used to. Hey, look for the silver lining: if we have fewer entries, we ll be able to offer more time behind the wheel. And if you re one of those who s forced into pinching pennies, our entry fees still are a pretty good deal. Good luck golfing or even taking a girl to the movies for what we charge at our Solo events. So, look at Reno Region s current situation as an opportunity. Step up and offer your services as an event chair or co-chair, a specialty chief, or as an officer or director. It s rewarding work, it doesn t take all that much time, and you ll have plenty of help, instruction and encouragement. Even in a down economy, Reno Region intends to keep growing, and you re invited to be a part of it. Reno Region SCCA s official Annual Meeting will take place Wednesday, December 3 rd, at 6:45 p.m. at Austin s Restaurant, 7671 S. Virginia St., Reno, Nevada. Election of Reno Region s 2009 Officer and Directors will take place at the Annual Meeting. It's taken some doing, but we finally have a full slate of nominees for Reno Region Board of Directors for next year. Here are the names: RE - Jim Gandy Assistant RE - Randy Jones Treasurer - John Townley Secretary - Lee Mitchell Director of Solo & Rally - Wes Friesen Director of Track Events - Dave Deborde Director At-Large ( ) - Dean Benz Director At-Large ( ) - Larry Savage Director At-Large (2009, assuming the RE is re-elected) - Peggy Jones November OVER-REVS FROM THE EDITOR BY DON JIM SMITH GANDY Money. That stuff of which dreams are made, the thing that can t buy love - but can buy just about everything else, the root of all evil; what most of us will be trying to hang on to next year. There doesn t seem to be much doubt that the economy in 2009, and maybe into 2010 and beyond, is going to be tough. Unemployment numbers are rising and there have been some experts who predict it will hit 10% in the Reno/Sparks area, and perhaps even nationally. Dark days to be sure. How s that going to effect motorsports in general and the Reno Region specifically? There s no easy answer to that. Since the invention of the automobile only world wars have been able to interrupt racing in America, they raced through the depression and the first two oil embargoes and every recession we ve had. There s no reason to think that NASCAR is going to shut down - even if the Detroit Big Three go out of business. They don t race Chevys or Fords or Dodges anyway. All of the racing series are going to see smaller fields, and maybe fewer dates; but I doubt they will disappear completely. But what of Reno? Idle conversation at the awards banquet seemed to have a central theme: no one could say for sure just what they d be running next season, or whether they d be running at all. Most of us, though, have a distinct advantage over major racing teams in that we already own our cars, it s just the go fast goodies, tires, and entrance fees that make us go Hmm, that s a lot of money for a hobby. We re all in one of two groups: either we are looking for a job and cutting back on any un-needed expenses, or we re worried about losing our job and cutting back on any un-needed expenses. In that kind of world spending $800-$1000 for a set of tires you can t drive on the street isn t really an option. Honey, I need a thousand dollars for a set of shocks so I can knock a half-second off my times will likely only elicit laughter from your significant other. How will the financial belt-tightening affect us? We probably won t see many people jumping into different Solo classes next year. All that stuff that was going to be added to push the car up a class or two will have to wait for better times. And those old dried out R-compounds that usually are only good for a part of one season will be stretched as far as possible next year, right down to the cords. Co-drives could become popular, just like marriage two can race cheaper than one. Street tires will start to make more and more sense; they last all season and you can drive on them all summer. Perfect attendance awards? The number of winners might be down as drivers make only the minimum number of events needed to trophy. Maybe drivers run only one day instead of both during a Solo weekend. Hawthorne? Two days in central Nevada might be too much of a stretch for worried budgets both in Reno and Las Vegas. And what of the Track Program? It s a bigger ticket item all around. Volunteering to work could become very popular, as a day at a corner station can equal a weekend of free Solo. Limiting time on track during practice and qualifying can help stretch tire life farther into the season, but it reduces the entrance fee bargain. As in Solo, co-drives might make sense. We ll still be racing in Reno, cones will be killed with reckless abandonment and the lap times will continue to fall. But one word we ll all hear more often - along with tires, pressures and time - is money.

4 November Awards Banquet 4

November 2008 SOLO PAX Factor Changes for 2009 Class 08 factor 09

837 DS 0.812 0.819 ES 0.817 0.823 FS 0.821 0.833 GS 0.815 0.

862 DSP 0.843 0.845 ESP 0.841 0.846 FSP 0.833 0.831 STS 0.816 0.

867 SM2 0.867 0.876 XP 0.882 0.882 BP 0.866 0.868 CP 0.864 0.

841 AM 1.000 1.000 BM 0.937 0.944 CM 0.904 0.907 DM 0.890 0.

5 November 2008 SOLO PAX Factor Changes for 2009 Class 08 factor 09 factor SS AS BS CS DS ES FS GS HS ASP BSP CSP DSP ESP FSP STS STS STX STU SM SM XP BP CP DP EP FP GP AM BM CM DM EM FM FSAE F FJA FJB FJC

6 November Reno Region hosted the third annual Northern Pacific Division Time Trials Championship at Reno-Fernley Raceway on September 27 & 28. Despite some apprehension about attendance numbers given the state of the economy and high fuel prices the event turned out successful although numbers were slightly lower than past years. Again this year, the event included Performance Driving Experience, Club Trials and Track Trials. Two different course configurations were utilized to accommodate Club Trials and Track Trials competitors. Thanks to flexibility designed into the track, the course workers are able to relocate to alternate corner stations and change course configuration in less than ten minutes. The Region has come to expect a helpful attitude from the entire Reno-Fernley Raceway staff and once again they did not disappoint. The facility was clean and ready to go when we arrived on Friday and the staff made every effort to keep it that way throughout our event. The weather was good all weekend and even the high afternoon wind that occurs frequently in Northern Nevada was absent. A great big THANK YOU to all the people that came out to staff the event and a Northern Nevada Thank You to Mike Lawler who made the trip down from Washington just to help in Race Control and to Kelly McCloskey who accompanied hubby Mark and then helped in Registration and Race Control. All volunteers were treated to event tee shirts, lunches and a social each day and a light dinner Saturday evening. If comments heard throughout the weekend are any indication I expect the volunteers had almost as much fun as the drivers. A lighter than expected turnout in PDX resulted in a great instructor to student ratio. The ten PDX drivers had an unobstructed track, great instruction and a superb time. Three of our frequent volunteers decided to give driving a try. It looks like we may have to recruit replacements to fill their slots because they will likely be driving, not volunteering at future events. The event was sanctioned as a double regional point s event for Club Trials and Track Trials and it is also the Norpac Time Trials Championship. Great competition throughout the classes and run groups made spectating interesting and driving fun. On Saturday three race prepared Porsches stole the show and filled three out the four top finishing positions. The fastest single lap of the weekend on the mile course H was 1: set by Porsche driver Mat Lowrance. The fastest weekend lap in Club Trials on the mile H-CT Course goes to Lysle Turnbeaugh in his Formula Vee at 1: Fast time for Northern Pacific Division Track Trials Championship competitors goes to Matt Benson in his GM V8 powered Nissan 280Z with a 1: In Club Trials the top honors goes to Lysle Turnbeaugh driving his Formula Vee at 1: Northern Pacific Club Trials Class Champions for 2008 are: FV Lysle Turnbeaugh, 1:42.680; SS Eric Gangloff, ; SSB Russ Carpenter, 1:52.361; SC Jim Gandy, 2:05.377; TT-1 Troy Chernoff, 1:50.619; TT-2 Gary Starr, ; TT-3 James Kunze, 1:50.480; TRACK RACING FORWARD Thoughts from your Track Events Activities Director Dave Deborde TT-4 Tim Calvert, 1:54.918; TT-5 Fred Austin, Northern Pacific Track Trials Champions for 2008 are: BP Connie Bogan, 1:52.583; GT2 Dave Deborde, 1:55.754; GT3 Mark McCloskey, 2:17.408; ITA Loren Enstad. 2: SP Matt Benson, 1:50.974; ITE Steve Martini, 2:17.656; ITS Neil Bryant, 2:02.734; TT-1 Brian Holsten, 1:51.831; TT-2 Art Majors, 1:55.080; TT-3 Jeff Denson 1: and VP1 Paul Gilbert, 2: Great people, good weather and a fun place to drive made for an excellent weekend at the track. It should be noted that while this event is seen as a success, it did not turn a profit for the region. Two or three additional entries would have swung the balance to the positive. Taken in total 2008 was a successful season. Scott has compiled season results for Club Trials and Track Trials and they are now posted on the region website Take a look and let us know if you spot any errors. During 2008 the Club invested in new timing and scoring equipment and additional radios to improve event operations and volunteers have been supporting the track events in greater numbers than ever before and they continue to gain experience. The region is well positioned to conduct a full 2009 track events season. The question that remains unanswered is how much impact the current economic downturn have on motorsports activities. The Reno Region is in good condition economically but we will need to be very careful going forward to avoid big losses, particularly with more costly track events. Reno-Fernley Raceway remains flexible but they would prefer we rent the facility both weekend days rather than one as we did at three of our events this year. In order to make that work financially we need to look at options such as one day of PDX and a second day of Time Trials or perhaps locate other clubs that would be willing to buy one or two sessions to help defray the added cost. We are also looking at the possibility of combining Time Trials and a small Regional Road Race or Vintage Race on one or more weekend. Suffice it to say, we will need to look at every opportunity to keep track events economically viable. If you would like to share your thoughts on the 2009 schedule or have ideas on opportunities to increase participation we would sure like to hear from you now. Don t forget to register for the Annual Year End Party and Awards Banquet that will be held November 15 at the Tamarack Junction. Dave Deborde Track Activities Director SCCA, Reno Region

November 2008 7 REGION Reno Region Upcoming Events For more information go to www.renoscca.org Reno Region Track Events Program Needs Help!

Scott Perry has handled T & S for several years with very little outside help while also attempting to drive and work long hours at his day job. Scott needs some relief, Can you help?

Immediate requirements include evaluation of our borrowed Orbitz 1 and possible purchase of updated Orbitz 4 timing & scoring software.

Establish Standard Operating Procedures in conjunction with the Track Activities Director and Registrar.

7 November REGION Reno Region Upcoming Events For more information go to Reno Region Track Events Program Needs Help! The Track Events program is in immediate need of a few good people to handle all aspects of the Timing & Scoring function. Scott Perry has handled T & S for several years with very little outside help while also attempting to drive and work long hours at his day job. Scott needs some relief, Can you help? Specific needs include: T & S Chief Overall Leadership for the Timing & Scoring Specialty. Immediate requirements include evaluation of our borrowed Orbitz 1 and possible purchase of updated Orbitz 4 timing & scoring software. The Chief will be responsible to set up the event in Orbitz, time the event and compile results from each session. Establish Standard Operating Procedures in conjunction with the Track Activities Director and Registrar. T & S Equipment Manager Evaluate and advise on all Timing & Scoring equipment and hardware needs, take custody of the equipment between events and set-up and take-down before and after event. T & S Staff (One or More) Assist with the operation of the T & S function at events including operating timing equipment, taping, compiling results. These timing and scoring positions are ideal for people that want to be involved with the excitement of track events but do not wish to participate as drivers and want to grow with our Time Trials and Race program. Timing and scoring is a unique specialty in that it is a critical to the successful operation of the events and is positioned to give a great view of all proceedings but it is not considered a HOT area. Qualified minors are welcome to participate! INTERESTED, please contact Dave Deborde, Track Activities Director at (775) or d_deborde@charter.net We would like to let your readers know that Classic Car Storage of Reno has just a few spaces left for indoor car storage. We also have outdoor storage spots available for cars, trailers, motorhomes, etc. For info call Gary Dyer at or Joe Rajacic at Road & Tach is distributed by U.S. Mail and by posting on the region website, renoscca.org. If you are receiving a paper copy and would prefer to get the newsletter electronically, please send your address to newsletter@renoscca.org. Monthly meetings of the Reno Region of the SCCA are held at 6:45 p.m. the first Wednesday of each month at Austin s Restaurant on South Virginia Street in Reno. You need not be a member to attend the general membership meeting.

8 November SCCA Reno Region 2910 Santa Inez Minden, NV 89423

Solo Supplemental Rules. New York Region Sports Car Club of America. Event Schedule:

Solo Supplemental Rules. New York Region Sports Car Club of America. Event Schedule: Solo Supplemental Rules New York Region Sports Car Club of America Event Schedule: Registration open 8:00 am - 8:30 am Tech open 8:30 am - 9:30 am Mandatory novice driver meetings at the start line 8:45,