Minutes: January 7, 2017 CRC Planning Meeting, Part 1

Attendance: sign-in sheet, quorum met, 15 voting members

Greg McDermott called meeting to order at 8:31am, distributed printed hand-outs, passed around the sign-in sheet and made introductions of new members; Chris Blough – SRF, Brian Donati – Small Bore, Michael Root – SRX7. Mike Collins attended as proxy for Tim Jacobs (SM). NDAs were signed by new members for Club Office file. Several guest drivers in attendance.

Budget update: 2016 budget includes final financial figures, basically broke even for 2016, this is very good. 2017 Draft Budget is ready to be presented to BoD at next week’s meeting, includes new Sanction & Insurance and Volunteer fees released by National. Good news is entry fees will not go up, total increase for National fees = only .50 per car.

Schedule: for Summit Points events is set, has been posted on the website and distributed via blast. The SRF/SRF3 Drivers Rep (Chris Blough) asked that the CRC speak to StCT to change the run groups to something safer for SRFs. They do not want to run with "big" cars.

Schedule: for “away” races discussion. List of possible dates/venues reviewed, lots of input from drivers via their reps. Location and weather a factor, consensus that Labor Day should not be the end of the 2017 season, which means we will be away for the season finale. Consensus that we should have 4 away events (last few years was 3). Motion from Mike Collins with 2nd from Alan Olsen that we choose “Option # 8” from the handout, with a 14-1 vote, the motion passed. Requests were made that we contact the REs of the other regions to be sure they can accommodate our MARRS groups or other considerations to be able to run and finish the season at their track. Option #8 = Out of Region schedule for MARRS will be: May 6-7@VIR,
June 3-4@NJMP Lightning, Aug 12-13@Pitt Race, and Oct 14-15@VIR.

Driver School: discussion about “Bill Scott Racing School” which will be held at SP. Appears to be a good thing for our region, may bring additional licensed drivers to the track. Plans for school to be about $3500 and include a car rental. May be mid-season after our school has ended and we do not offer another school until the next spring, so this could add mid-season drivers to MARRS. The Bill Scott school will have their students apply for an SCCA waiver and membership.

Discussion about our Driver School including pricing to remain the same as last few years @ $199 entry fee. Possible same discounts as last year ($100 off for attending both PDX/DS and $100 off each of 1st three races). All pricing and discounts have been included in budget and will be presented to BoD next week. Supps are needed to open the event soon. A new item to supps may cause a delay (see below section on changes to EV dispatch procedure), but we can open without this decided and then make an amendment to supps if necessary. Our March PDX on Main is actually the weekend before the school (is usually 2 weeks before) and there is no FATT at SP on the Friday of our school’s weekend. Requests made to add this info to our DS supps.

Motion made by Betty Harrison and 2nd by Jay Voissem to charge a $100 processing/convenience fee for those students who acquire their Novice Permit locally at DC Region (thru Mike Collins) to cover our cost of book and to help reduce the # of people not going thru National SCCA in advance of the school. Motion passed unanimously.

Request to add above passed motion to supps. Further discussion on car counts for each type of group; we are not seeing large # of open-wheeled cars at school-may need to rearrange groups. An idea was shared to invite licensed drivers to attend school for seat-time and help the smaller groups practice with more cars on track.

Changes to EV dispatch procedure: discussion about change from Chris White (SP) which will no longer allow dispatch of ambulance/firetruck unless field is “under control”. Current procedure was discussed, and the order of flagging & call codes used. Three possible options alternative discussed, as well as VIR current procedure. SP will adopt whichever option we decide, and use for all other race group entities. Lots of discussion on how some drivers “game” the system while under emergency conditions. Motion from Gregg Ginsberg and 2nd by Steve Huemmer to approve “Code 35” for track owned vehicles only. Motion passed by
13-2 vote. We will need to add this change into the DS (and all other) Supps, and have DS students practice at school.

15 minute break

Race Groupings for 2017: New classes? F4FA will be classed as Atlantic, no change to T&S or points, etc. but National will be tracking participation. Review of 2016 car counts per group reveals that changes are required, some classes and groups have too small numbers to continue as-is. Specifically low counts in W&T and Big Bore. Lots of discussion on ideas for possible re-groupings, but no motion made. Driver Mark Liller made a suggestion on how to move several classes and Brian Donati will work with him further on this possibility. Several driver reps will work this issue and come to Planning Mtg Part II with options. Off-topic discussion on Bracket Racing, but tabled until next meeting. Requests for a marketing and promotion plan for Bracket Racing to be presented at next mtg, and several members are going to work on this to present at Part II.

Supps committee: formed as John Nesbitt, Greg McDermott and Bob Crawford. Request made for last year’s DS and MARRS supps to be sent as template to start the work.

Agenda for Part II Planning Mtg was discussed.

Motion from Mike High and 2nd Alan Olsen to adjourn, adjourned at 12:40pm.