Area 4 Director Update for March, 2021

With the racing season looming on the horizon, February started getting “real”. Schedules for Club Racing, Pro and Champ Tour Solo, Track Night in America, etc. were coalescing and my summer schedule could start to gel around those dates. Preparation continued for GLDiv Spring Training meeting and I sat in on a few more SCCA Convention sessions and various other meetings.

My tentative schedule for the summer looks like this (for now):

  • 4/29-5/2: STC @ PIRC (Super Tour)
  • 5/22, 5/23: OVR @ MidOhio (Major)
  • 6/4-6/6: Champ Tour Solo @ Grissom
  • 6/19, 6/20: WMR @ Grattan (Double Regional)
  • 7/16-7/18: Time Trails National Tour @ GingerMan
  • 7/24, 7/25: SBR/DET @ GingerMan (Major)
  • 730-8/1: Pro Solo @ Wurtsmith
  • 8/21, 8/22: WMR @ Grattan (Major)
  • 9/6: WMR Solo @ Grattan
  • 9/24-10/3: Runoffs @ Indy
  • 10/31: MBR Covered Bridges Road Rally

That should keep me busy and off the streets causing havoc. Obviously, this could change for any number of reasons (C-19, weather, “honey do” list, etc.) but I’ll do my best to represent our division at as many different types of events as possible. I need to throw in a Rally Cross event or two as well. If I have time, I may slide over to Lincoln, NE and visit the Solo Nationals…..I’ve never been and I would really like to see this event in person.

By now you should have seen some emails from Val McCammon about the GLDiv Spring Training meeting. She is doing a fantastic job at herding the cats and coordinating this event. You can register for the event through motorsportreg.com (MSR) at this Link (https://www.motorsportreg.com/events/gld-virtual-spring-training-2021-zoom-meeting-scca-great-lakes-division-283923) . Reach out to her via email (pyramid@bluebirdview.com) if you have any questions.

I am also starting to gain some traction in my “Ask the Director” appearances at regional meetings. These are so much fun and this is one of the few upsides to the pandemic. There’s no way I could visit Cincinnati, Dayton, Cleveland, Louisville, Charleston, etc. if these meetings were held in person……but in our new virtual world, it’s as easy as logging into my office PC.

To that end, I was invited to sit in on the NEOhio Region virtual meeting on 2/2. As the convention was going on that evening, their meeting had to wrap up by 8p. This meant my portion was pretty short. But it was productive and that’s all that matters. I look forward to visiting with them at future meetings.

I followed up the NEOhio meeting by sitting in on a CRB meeting later that evening. There was a lot of discussion about Miata front hubs. And since the Miata can compete in so many classes, this was germane to a wide variety of competitors. There were also dozens of other rules debated. For info on what was finalized and promulgated, visit the latest Fastrack update here (https://www.scca.com/pages/cars-and-rules).

I sat in on my first Budget, Finance and Risk management committee meeting on 2/4. This was a very short meeting (15 minutes?) hosted by the Chairman (K.J. Christopher) to let us know about a budgeting issue that had popped up. Nothing serious but he wanted to let the rest of us know about it. I’d try to explain it but I’m only a chemist and I haven’t been allowed near the home checkbook for 30+ years..

We had a BoD meeting on 2/22. It was pretty straightforward with no fires to put out. We were re-introduced to Jeff Dahnert. He is the new financial guru for the Club. As a past President, he certainly knows his way around the “ins and outs” of the SCCA. He gave us a brief overview of the financial status of the Club. Considering all we’ve been through in the past year, the National Staff has done a GREAT job responding to the situation. We briefly discussed and ultimately OK’d one minor rule change for Club Racing (FYI…..I voted for it). We are still trying to coordinate a face to face meeting during the summer.

I also sat in on a RXB meeting on 2/23. The team was working on several ideas on how to grow the sport. They discussed their rules updates, heard from various committees (RallySprint, National Championship, Divisional Stewards, Growth & Development, etc.). They reviewed the presentations made during the SCCA Convention. Everyone was very pleased with the event and the turnout.

March will be busy with a CRB meeting on 3/2, the GLDiv Spring Training meeting on 3/7, a BoD meeting on 3/22 and an RXB meeting on 3/23. I’m sure other things will pop up too.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Dayle Frame

Announcement: Great Lakes Division Spring Training

It’s time to register for this year’s free Spring Training 2021 Virtual Zoom experience on Saturday, March 6. Register on MSR to get the Zoom link and the recordings for later viewing: https://www.motorsportreg.com/events/gld-virtual-spring-training-2021-zoom-meeting-scca-great-lakes-division-283923
We’ll start with a one hour Ask-The-Director session with Dayle Frame, BoD rep. Then, it’s a one-hour Solo session (Ray Jason, Raleigh & Velma Boreen), followed by a short road race preview with Exec Steward Duane Harrington. Be sure to join the 1.5 hour Road Rally Safety Training and a few specialty meetings, including a GLD RE meeting, too. (schedule being finalized)

When you register, you’ll also get info about the Test & Tune Pre-Zoom Session on Wed, March 3, at 7:00 pm. Check your link, learn tips, and laugh with friends and your host Raleigh Boreen!

Because SCCA’s online National Convention covered so much already, the focus of this year’s short meetings will be GLD-centered. Register on MSR to get the Zoom link and the recordings for later viewing: https://www.motorsportreg.com/events/gld-virtual-spring-training-2021-zoom-meeting-scca-great-lakes-division-283923

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us using contact us form on our website, or on Facebook.

RE-Port

Hello Cincinnati Region SCCA Members & Friends! It’s wintertime and most of us have cold tires and engines yearning to get moving. But we have had some members recently venture south with some great success! Rob & Doris Bax spent some quality time in Florida as Rob championed his B-Spec Mini Cooper at SCCA Majors Events. With 2 races at Homestead-Miami Speedway he took away 1st & 3rd place trophies including winning a pole and a new track record! The following weekend at Sebring International Raceway brought a pair of highly contested 4th place finishes. If you had a chance to watch and listen to the broadcast on scca.com it was some exciting racing. Congrats Rob!

Also new this month you will find an article from our new Area 4 National Board of Director Dayle Frame! Dayle has offered to periodically update the regions in Great Lakes Division as to what is happening on the national level with his new responsibilities. We should look forward to this great new line of communication from our National Board representative.

The covid pandemic has recently reached some of our very dear members and friends. I want to extend well wishes to those on behalf of their friends here in Cincinnati Region and hope for a strong recovery. Spring will be here before we know it and I look forward to seeing everyone soon!

Stay safe and healthy,

Tony Brown
Cincinnati Region SCCA, R.E.

Race Report

I hope you have blocked out July 30-August 1 on your summer calendar to join us at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for our Todd Cholmondeley IT Spec*tacular double divisional race weekend and Track Event. This is an extremely popular event in the Great Lakes Division race world. There are ample opportunities to be involved both on and off the track. Come work and we’ll feed you lunch, and you can come to the Saturday night picnic in the worker campground. Besides good eats there will be special Jell-O desserts. We are looking forward to this year’s event given we had to cancel last year due to Covid.
Direct questions to the following email or phone number.

Christy Graham
Race Chair
roadrace@cincyscca.com or
crjgraham@yahoo.com
513-658-4677

RoadRally Report

Planning is continuing for the 2021 rally season. Tentative dates are April 10, May 8, June 12, August 14, September 18, and October 23. Meanwhile, you can gain some insight into the behind-the-scenes operation of road rally by “attending” Convention sessions online. Since the world has now gone virtual, you too can participate in the seminars for FREE. You must be a member and have established an account on the my.scca.com website, download a couple apps and join the live streams. Rally sessions are on Mondays – the 1st, 8th, and 15th. If you are new to road rally, see what our program is all about at CincySCCA.com/Road-Rally/.

Gordon Benson
Christy Graham
roadrally@cincyscca.com or
CincySCCARally@yahoo.com
513-658-4677

Solo Report

Holy heck, I cannot believe it’s February already!!! We are nearly two (2!!!) months from our first event of the 2021 Cincy Solo season. If you haven’t seen our Facebook solo page posts or our website, our 2021 dates are fairly well set. I am happy to let everyone know we will be returning to Traders World International Speedway. Things could change as SCCA schedules additional National Championship Tours or ProSolos in the area, but so far our dates still seems good. I say that, but as you will see we still need to confirm the Starting Line date with SCCA and confirm the Evolution Performance Driving School events.

2021 Solo Schedule

2021 SCCA National Convention
Hopefully you have been able to attend the various solo related topics from the SCCA National Convention virtually via Whova and possibly other non-solo sessions. There have been a number of interesting topics such as the Junior Driver Program, Course Design, SCCA Solo Safety Steward training, etc. Sessions continue through Feb 21st. Along that line, Cincy will submit a package to be considered one of the 5 to 10 regions the national office will use as trial regions across the country. Please let me know if you are interested/planning to bring junior drivers to our events in 2021 so I can give SCCA a feel for how strong of a Jr Driver Program we would have. Thank you to all of you who took the SSS training, also please let me know if you did.

https://www.scca.com/pages/nationalconvention?fbclid=IwAR3DpzsjTBBZtQ5O-tsrhEstH_b49ElyftqHF5OuvQc_iOHGNUNiiknnUIk

2020 Year End Trophies
If you were identified as a 2020 Cincy Solo Championship Series solo trophy winner, I have tried to contact you via the email address you or phone number you have used to register for our events in MotorsportReg. If you have not seen those, please go and check. We are offering a number of choices of trophies: A plaque with an embossed photo of your choosing; an embroidered backpack, duffel bag, two-color jacket, or hooded jacket. We are also offering the opportunity for you to purchase any of the additional items at cost, $38. Many of you have already answered, I have finalized the additional ordering process, you will be able to place your order for additional items directly through the Solo Performance Specialties (SPS) website. I am still trying to figure out when/how we can present them safely since we had to cancel the Awards Program, but worst case they will be available at the first event. Direct shipping can be made at an additional cost.

Cincinnati Region Apparel and Merchandise (soloperformance.com)

Interested in ordering Cincy SCCA Apparel?
Even if you didn’t win a trophy last year, you can still purchase a trophy, duffel bag, backpack, or jacket with your name and Cincy SCCA logo embroidered on it. Heck, you can even get your finishing position on whatever you choose too. They can be shipped to me and delivered at events or at separate meetings or can be shipped direct at an additional cost.

Solo Planning for 2021
Lastly, we are planning to have a solo planning meeting in the Feb/Mar timeframe to discuss plans for 2021. If you are interested in helping us guide/plan the future of making Cincy Solo be the best and most fun it can be for everyone, contact me and I will make sure you are invited. You two can be part of the solo committee. Part of the plans include replacement of our Cincy SCCA trailer, possibly with a motorized vehicle, upgrade to timing/scoring, event trophies, event flow, etc.

Area 4 Director Update for February, 2021

January was a busy month. As I mentioned in last month’s update, in addition to the BoD meetings, I also sit in on the Club Racing Board (CRB) and Rally Cross Board (RXB) meetings. There were BoD meetings on 1/11 and 1/25 as well as a CRB meeting on 1/5 and RXB meetings on 1/12 and 1/19. I also sat in on a couple of regional meetings doing an “Ask the Director” session with them. Throw in the SCCA Convention sessions that I attended (five on 1/23 and several more during the rest of the convention) and there was a lot of time spent on video conference sessions.

The BoD meetings were fairly mundane in that we dealt with a lot of boring, procedural stuff. We go over financial reports and other miscellaneous items. For example, we’re getting a new board management platform in the next few months. This is a web based, software package that will help us vote, manage meetings, post agendas, etc. Really interesting stuff, huh? We’re also trying to coordinate a face to face meeting at some point once the pandemic gets quenched a bit. As you can imagine, we’re all pretty busy during the competition season and finding a suitable date has been pretty tough. Yes, there are some super-secret, hush-hush details that I cannot mention here but I will tell you that most of that isn’t nearly as interesting as you might imagine.

The CRB meeting was pretty long (3.25 hours) and they discussed a whole myriad of rules and policy changes. The RXB folks discussed policies for expanding RallyX’s footprint. For details check out the latest FasTrack bulletins here. I must say that I really enjoy attending these sessions as it reiterates how much passion there is for our sport across all the disciplines SCCA covers.

I’ve been working on a few other things too:

  1. I’ve started talking with more regions about sitting in on their regional meetings. I have a couple of them already scheduled and am willing to do some more.
  2. I’ve been working with the various divisional stewards about our event schedules. I am REALLY interested in going to a bunch of events this summer. I’ve penciled in a visit to GingerMan to watch/work the Time Trials National Tour in July (7/16-7/18). I also hope to go to at least one of the Pro Solo events. I’ve attended and participated in a few Solos over the years, but they’ve always been of the regional variety. Seeing a Pro Solo will be eye opening I’m sure. I also want to make sure I get to a Road Rally event this summer.
  3. I’ve been working with our webmaster on a complete reworking of our divisional website. It’ll look fantastic once it’s done.
  4. I’ve been working with Val McCammon, Velma Boreen and Tony Brown on the GLDiv Spring Training meeting. If you haven’t done so already, please respond to Val’s emails for guidance on what the divisional membership would like to get out of this virtual meeting.

That about sums up January of the BoD for me. 24 hours in front of my PC screen on video conferences and a bunch more wrestling with “all things Area 4”. I’m slowly getting into the waters (more than “dipping my toes”, less than “up to my neck”). I’m sure the pace will increase as the club maneuvers around Covid-19 in the next few months.

As always, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Dayle Frame