SOLO II Committee Meeting Minutes 2/10/04
Members in Attendance – Jerry Lamb,
Gretchen Everett, Lou Ann Christensen, Keith Brown, Scott Miller, Aaron
Pailthorp, Tim Irwin, Alan Dahl, Dick Willy, Val Korry, Mark McCooey, Bud
Bohrer, Tom LeCoque, Scott Chytil.
Minutes Review – Unfortunately
the minutes from December were reprinted rather than new minutes from
January. We will have to approve the
January minutes at our next meeting. Board Report – The newsletter for January
and February will be a combined issue to save money. The new member total for NWR is now
1490. This puts us back into the “large”
category rather than “jumbo.” Race has some events planned, and Rally will be
holding Doo-Wop 3 & 4 March 6 & 7.
The northwest region is considering amortizing the cost of insurance
equally between all three venues. The
group agreed that this was a very unreasonable and unfair percentage for Solo
to be forced to pay to help compensate the situation.
Treasurer’s Report – Please
see attached. Some
activity in the checkbook. Lou
Ann presented a summary of the year and her projections for 2004. Several expenses, such as awards, and site
fees were higher than we anticipated.
Her projections for income were extremely close.
WWSCC Report – Slush 2 was just held. Slush 3 will be held on February 22, not the
29th as stated on the website.
The drifting event proposal has not been approved because there were not
enough clubs in attendance for a vote.
Several events have been planned.
Please see the web site for specific dates.
Equipment Report – Aaron followed up with Fordahl Motorsports
regarding a case for the display. There
will not be substantial savings trying to order direct from chronomix, or with
Fordahl Motorsports. Aaron suggests the
club should order with Fordahl, maybe together with the Porsche Club. The total cost will be $388 plus
shipping. Aaron also discovered that
buying a data cable is a standard type similar to most laptops, so we should be
in good shape there. We’ve got an
additional connector now, so a second one can be created for a very low
cost. Aaron gave a demonstration of the
display box. A discussion was held regarding the potential this display holds
for displaying things such as class position, and pax’d times. This could be possibly, but would need to be
coordinated with Scott and the autox timing program. Dick Willy suggested that we go back to the
“older” procedure of having a couple of people work together from inside the
timing van to write down times on the score sheets. There are several options available to
display times. Joe Goeke has also
volunteered to set-up a wireless LAN line that will work with his laptop. A
motion was made and approved to purchase a pair of headsets to work with our
radios that will make this situation possible.
The group agreed that Joe should move forward with his ideas and we will
also talked to Terri Johnson regarding adding two additional people to her work
sheet to cover posting.
The bus repairs are now complete and everything should be
working fine now. One of the windows on
the side access door is not closing correctly and is allowing moisture to enter
the bus. This should be fixed before
permanent damage happens. Jerry asked
for volunteers to help take care of this.
Scott Miller said that he would take a look at it next time he’s there.
OLD BUSINESS
NW Region Banquet Reminder – Everyone in attendance had a good time.
Scott Miller won the Mary Pang Unsung Hero award. Congratulations
Scott!
National Convention – Bud
presented a four page report summarizing the convention. The 2004 convention marked the 60th
anniversary of the founding of SCCA. He
brought back several items for display and or distribution between other
members. In the Solo report, it was
announced that Ron Bauer has been added as a new member to the S.E.B. STX and SM2 will be full national classes in
2004. Solo sanctioned more than 1200 events in 2003 more than all other venues
combined, and had 94,000 total entries.
National Tours
averaged 283 entries. Of the 60,000 SCCA
members, 26% register Solo as their primary interest. Please see the attached report for full
details of the event.
Site Report - Scott and
Dick look at the White River Amphitheater.
Due to lamppost placement, we would be limited to a 30-second
course. This unfortunately would not
allow for a championship event. The
manager was extremely interested in working with us and was
very interested in what they could do to help maintain the site and keep it
suitable for auto crossing. Some of the
unpaved lots in the back would be much more suitable for our needs. We of course, would be a secondary concern
for scheduling around their current events, and we would be looking at paying a
lot less than they would be looking for.
It may be appropriate for a school or practice, but the committee
doesn’t see it being a possibility for this season. Scott and Karl have met with Packwood again,
and they seem much more interested in the whole situation now. They are willing to give us free access for our
first weekend, and will also send a 30-person crew to clean up the site before
we ever arrive. Packwood is an
incredible site that even has a huge building available for people to pit in! It was extremely difficult for Scott and Karl
to contain their excitement! This is
almost too good to be true! We would
like to hold Event #2 at this location.
It is approximately 2.5 hours from Seattle,
but well worth the drive.
Schedule/Event
Chairs –
#1 March 7th (BMP) Chair: Scott Miller,
#2 March 28 (Packwood) Need
event chair,
#3 April 4 (Yakima)
Chairs: Karl Coleman, Kevin Dietz,
#4 May 23 (BMP) Chair: Jerry Lamb,
#5 May 30 (BMP) Need
event chair,
#6 August 15 (BMP) Chair: Aaron Pailthorp,
#7 September 5 (BMP) Chair: Tim Irwin
#8 October 10 (TBD) Chair: Gretchen Everett - Lou Ann will help cover registration
for this event.
#9 October 24 (TBD) Need
event chair,
Novice School – Date will changed
to May 22, once we determine if #2 will be held at Packwood.
Practice/School – May 22 (BMP)
National Tour – July 21 – 25 (BMP)
Coneheads – Fun
was had by all attending! Thanks Karina,
Susan and Kelley. The group agreed that
the food was much better than we had at the golf course is past years.
Car Numbers – Tim Irwin has been working with Kim from Crazy
red head racing/Fordahl Motorsports to develop packages that would be available
for sale at our regional events. There
would be a $350 initial investment if the region were to handle it. Registration could sell the packages. The group agreed that this was a great idea,
but we want to get a few events under our belt and increase our cash flow
before we begin. This discussion has
been tabled till a further meeting.
NEW BUSINESS
Annual Tech – The SEB
has approved an annual tech on a regional level. Keith has made a proposal that NWR introduce
this for 2004. The inspection guidelines
shall follow those published in the August 2003 Fast track and included in the
2004 rulebook. Annual tech will be
limited to stock class, STS, STX and possibly some street prepared cars. The annual tech process will only be
available for experienced drivers that have competed in at least 5 events in
each of the past two seasons. Any time
you make a modification to the vehicle, it must be re-teched and it will be the
responsibility of the driver to be honest about the situation. A suggestion was made that we remove the
eligible class listing, open it up to all classes as long as the driver is
eligible. A motion was made and
seconded. Keith will now determine the
date for holding the annual tech, which will be held someplace other than
regional event #1. Kevin has volunteered
his shop, and Jodi also said that Greg would probably be willing to let us use
his shop. More than one session will be
held, the first will probably be held on February 29th.
Event Procedures – Mike and Carol were not in attendance and
Jerry did not have a hard copy of the information. This discussion will be held until the next
meeting.
Event Pricing – Scott
Miller suggested that we come up with a different pricing structure. He felt it might be simpler to just charge
based on being registered or non-registered.
He was reminded that it was also important to offer a discounted price
for SCCA members. Some felt with current
fees for insurance, participants, etc. it may be an appropriate time for a fee
increase. A discussion was held covering
many different options, such as eliminating regional trophies, looking for
lower costing sites, getting more sponsorships for
National Tour, etc. The group agreed
that we should do more research to come up with ways to cut our operating costs
before we raise the fees.
Event Attendance- A discussion was held regarding
ways to help increase our average attendance.
Jodi suggested that we bring back the tri-fold paper schedules. This would include our sponsors on the front
side, and our schedule on the backside.
Jodi will talk to Greg to see if he interested in covering this for the
2004 season. The schedule would also
include our website and hotline number.
GOO
To help eliminate all of the misc. numbers, cars, etc. in
the current database, Jodi felt it might be necessary to delete all of the
information in the database and start clean for 2004. Her main concern is making sure that people
who have had the same number for the 20 years do not loose their number. The group felt this was an appropriate
concern, but an effective solution was not determined at this point.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:38 p.m.